Kudakwashe Dube

PLAN: a framework and specification language with an event-condition-action (ECA) mechanism for clinical test request protocols

It has been generally recognised that the need to improve the quality of health care has lead to a strong demand for clinical protocols/guidelines supported by computer systems in their creation and execution. How to efficiently and effectively manage, query and manipulate the computerised clinical test protocols has posed a major challenge but received little research attention sofar. This paper addresses this issue from a unified approach based on an active rule mechanism. This paper first presents PLAN-a generic modelling framework and specification language with an Event-Condition-Action (ECA) mechanism for clinical test request protocols. It then discusses in detail components of the test protocol and patient test plan expressed in PLAN. The implementation of PLAN is also briefly discussed. This research is unique in that it introduces an active ECA mechanism into test protocol modelling and specification, and emphasises the importance of the efficient and effective management of computerised rest request protocols.

Supporting collaboration and information sharing in computer-based clinical guideline management

Collaboration and information sharing for facilitating patient and clinician mobility is important to consider in supporting computer-based clinical guidelines and protocols. This paper presents part of ongoing work to develop a generic approach to supporting information sharing and collaboration in computer-based clinical guideline management. A framework for guideline management is presented with enhancements for supporting collaboration and information sharing. The generic approach combines the active rule paradigm and XML technologies to create the basis for supporting collaboration and sharing in a distributed healthcare environment.

Framework and architecture for the management of event-condition-action (ECA) rule-based clinical protocols

Computer-based support for the incorporation of clinical practice guidelines and protocols into daily practice has recently attracted a lot of research interest within the healthcare informatics area. The aim is not only to provide support for the flexible specification and execution of clinical guidelines or protocols but also the dynamic management of these guidelines or protocols. This paper presents a framework and architecture for the management of clinical protocols whose specification and execution models are based on the event-condition-action (ECA) rule paradigm.

Applying event-condition-action mechanism in healthcare: a computerised clinical test-ordering protocol system (TOPS)

The paper addresses issues of active database application in the challenging healthcare area: the management and execution of computerised clinical practice guidelines/protocols. The problem of how to efficiently and effectively query and manipulate the computerised clinical protocols/guidelines has posed a major challenge, but received little research attention until very recently. By proposing a declarative modeling language (PLAN) with an event-condition-action (ECA) mechanism for clinical test-ordering protocols, and an automatic mapping and management system (TOPS), the paper addresses this issue, in an important medical domain, from a unified approach based on an active rule mechanism. The work presented is part of an on-going research effort that investigates a new application domain for active databases, and proposes some new requirements towards the enhancements of active DBMS functionalities.

AIM: an XML-based ECA rule language for supporting a framework for managing complex information

This paper presents an XML-based event-condition-action (ECA) rule language, AIM, for supporting the SEM framework and approach to the computer-based incorporation of best practice in daily work and the subsequent management of the resulting complex information. SEM framework provides knowledge and information management support in terms of three planes: the specification plane, the execution plane and the manipulation plane. AIM language is an assembly of declarative language modules for supporting the three planes of the SEM framework and envisages its use within the context of XML and databases.

Securing e-Healthcare Information

Securing personal e-Healthcare information aims mainly at protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the individual who receives healthcare services that are delivered through e-Health. Advances in security technologies have so far not eliminated the challenge posed by the need to secure e-Healthcare information. The rate of privacy and confidentiality breaches continue to increase unabated. These breaches pose challenges to all domains that converge on the task of securing information and building trust in e-Healthcare information management. Only a holistic approach that positions itself at the point of convergence of the domains of law, organisational policy, professional ethics and IT security could offer the promise to mitigate, if not eliminate, the major challenges to securing e-Healthcare information.

Complex information management using a framework supported by ECA rules in XML

It is every organizations desire to incorporate best practice into its enterprise. This incorporation gives rise to the need to maintain information that could be viewed as complex. Managing this complex information poses a major challenge to the area of information management. This paper presents a framework for the incorporation of best practice and subsequent management of the resulting complex information. The paper also presents an approach to supporting this framework by using the ECA rule paradigm with an XML-based language, called AIM, for specifying and querying best practice and the complex information.

Using the CareMap with Health Incidents Statistics for Generating the Realistic Synthetic Electronic Healthcare Record

The de-personalised Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) for secondary use has suffered re-identification. The Realistic Synthetic EHR (RS-EHR) is a promising solution safe from the threat of re-identification. This paper addresses the problem of generating the RS-EHR without using the real EHR by exploiting published Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) and Health Incidence Statistics (HIS). The CoMSER method takes a constraint-based approach involving: (1) formalising CPGs into the CareMap constraint and the CareMap into the State Transition Machine (STM), (2) incorporating published HIS-based constraints into the STM, and (3) exploiting domain expertise in verifying domain knowledge and creating the re-usable library of clinical notes. A preliminary evaluation of the CoMSER Method produces the RS-EHR that is considered realistic. The main contribution of this work is the approach that uses an HIS-enriched and CPG-based CareMap for generating RS-EHR with neither access to the real EHR nor using de-personalised EHR.

Accelerometer based human activities and posture recognition

The quantity of elderly people like to live in their homes, secluded, in their brilliant age is expanding exponentially. This is not a perfect path for an elderly individual to live. However, the urbanization and resultant change of the social and social conduct makes it a more regular event. Falls are a noteworthy reason for death and horribleness in more established grown-ups. In this way, it has turn into an opportune need to create mechanized look after the elderly. The first end, purpose of such fall computer looking-glass is to ready caregivers of the fall event, which can then start an earlier process. In the present study, we amplify the use of wearable inertial sensors for fall identification and information of human posture and activities, by creating and assessing the precision of a sensor framework for identifying the same. We found that our system could discover fall events and monitor human activities with at least 95% accuracy.

Approach and Method for Generating Realistic Synthetic Electronic Healthcare Records for Secondary Use

This position paper presents research work involving the development of a publicly available Realistic Synthetic Electronic Healthcare Record RS-EHR. The paper presents PADARSER, a novel approach in which the real Electronic Healthcare Record EHR and neither authorization nor anonymisation are required in generating the synthetic EHR data sets. The GRiSER method is presented for use in PADARSER to allow the RS-EHR to be synthesized for statistically significant localised synthetic patients with statistically prevalent medical conditions based upon information found from publicly available data sources. In treating the synthetic patient within the GRiSER method, clinical workflow or careflows Cfs are derived from Clinical Practice Guidelines CPGs and the standard local practices of clinicians. The Cfs generated are used together with health statistics, CPGs, medical coding and terminology systems to generate coded synthetic RS-EHR entries from statistically significant observations, treatments, tests, and procedures. The RS-EHR is thus populated with a complete medical history describing the resulting events from treating the medical conditions. The strength of the PADARSER approach is its use of publicly available information. The strengths of the GRiSER method are that 1 it does not require the use of the real EHR for generating the coded RS-EHR entries; and 2 the generic components for obtaining careflow from CPGs and for generating coded RS-EHR entries are applicable in other areas such as knowledge transfer and EHR user interfaces respectively.