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To protect patient privacy and ensure authorized access to remote medical services, many remote user authentication schemes for the integrated electronic patient record (EPR) information system have been proposed in the literature. In a recent paper, Das proposed a hash based remote user authentication scheme using passwords and smart cards for the integrated EPR information system, and claimed that the proposed scheme could resist various passive and active attacks. However, in this paper, we found that Das's authentication scheme is still vulnerable to modification and user duplication attacks. Thereafter we propose a secure and efficient authentication scheme for the integrated EPR information system based on lightweight hash function and bitwise exclusive-or (XOR) operations. The security proof and performance analysis show our new scheme is well-suited to adoption in remote medical healthcare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how a healthcare network in Taiwan uses a practical cloud image data center (CIDC) to communicate with its constituent hospital branches. A case study approach was used. The study was carried out in the central region of Taiwan, with four hospitals belonging to the Veterans Hospital healthcare network. The CIDC provides synchronous and asynchronous consultation among these branches. It provides storage, platforms, and services on demand to the hospitals. Any branch-client can pull up the patient's medical images from any hospital off this cloud. Patients can be examined at the branches, and the images and reports can be further evaluated by physicians in the main Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) to enhance the usage and efficiency of equipment in the various branches, thereby shortening the waiting time of patients. The performance of the CIDC over 5 years shows: (1) the total number of cross-hospital images accessed with CDC in the branches was 132,712; and (2) TVGH assisted the branches in keying in image reports using the CIDC 4,424 times; and (3) Implementation of the system has improved management, efficiency, speed and quality of care. Therefore, the results lead to the recommendation of continuing and expanding the cloud computing architecture to improve information sharing among branches in the healthcare network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately and efficiently identifying the location of patients during the course of rehabilitation is an important issue. Wireless transmission technology can reach this goal. Tracking technologies such as RFID (Radio frequency identification) can support process improvement and improve efficiencies of rehabilitation. There are few published models or methods to solve the problem of positioning and apply this technology in the rehabilitation center. We propose a mechanism to enhance the accuracy of positioning technology and provide information about turns and obstacles on the path; and user-centered services based on location-aware to enhanced quality care in rehabilitation environment. This paper outlines the requirements and the role of RFID in assisting rehabilitation environment. A prototype RFID hospital support tool is established. It is designed to provide assistance for monitoring rehabilitation patients. It can simultaneously calculate the rehabilitant's location and the duration of treatment, and automatically record the rehabilitation course of the rehabilitant, so as to improve the management efficiency of the rehabilitation program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the use of social media for health information exchange is expanding among patients, physicians, and other health care professionals. In medical areas, social media allows non-experts to access, interpret, and generate medical information for their own care and the care of others. Researchers paid much attention on social media in medical educations, patient-pharmacist communications, adverse drug reactions detection, impacts of social media on medicine and healthcare, and so on. However, relatively few papers discuss how to extract useful knowledge from a huge amount of textual comments in social media effectively. Therefore, this study aims to propose a Fuzzy adaptive resonance theory network based Information Retrieval (FIR) scheme by combining Fuzzy adaptive resonance theory (ART) network, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), and association rules (AR) discovery to extract knowledge from social media. In our FIR scheme, Fuzzy ART network firstly has been employed to segment comments. Next, for each customer segment, we use LSI technique to retrieve important keywords. Then, in order to make the extracted keywords understandable, association rules mining is presented to organize these extracted keywords to build metadata. These extracted useful voices of customers will be transformed into design needs by using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) for further decision making. Unlike conventional information retrieval techniques which acquire too many keywords to get key points, our FIR scheme can extract understandable metadata from social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a paper aiming to use data mining technology to establish a classification of breast cancer survival pattern and offer a treatment decision-making tree for the survival ability of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Taiwan. Topics include the results of the experiment showing that the 3 models used to create the classification system. Also mentioned is the use of a support vector machine, logistics regression and a C5.0 decision tree to construct a classification model.

This Paper presents an automated method of Epileptic Spike detection in Electroencephalogram (EEG) using Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA). It takes pre-recorded single channel EEG data file as input and finds the occurrences of Epileptic Spikes data in it. The EEG signal was recorded at 256 Hz in two minutes separate data files using the Visual Lab-M software (ADLink Technology Inc., Taiwan). It was preprocessed for removal of baseline shift and band pass filtered using an infinite impulse response (IIR) Butterworth filter. A system, whose functionality was modeled with DFA, was designed. The system was tested with 10 EEG signal data files. The recognition rate of Epileptic Spike as on average was 95.68%. This system does not require any human intrusion. Also it does not need any short of training. The result shows that the application of DFA can be useful in detection of different characteristics present in EEG signals. This approach could be extended to a continuous data processing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrocardiogram (ECG) as one of the best methods to measure irregular heartbeats is a dispensable method for doctor to diagnose Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) patients. Most medical centers in Taiwan implement the reduction of Door to Balloon (D2B) time, which is defined as the time interval starting when an Acute-Myocardial-Infarction patient arrives at the Emergency Department, and ending when a catheter guide wire crosses the culprit lesion as the acute-myocardial-infarction treatment on the patient in the cardiac catheterization room. Generally, when a patient with acute-chest pain is sent into a hospital (always to Emergency Department), the hospital will collect his/her ECG which needs to be evaluated by a cardiologist to ensure that the patient really has Acute Myocardial Infarction. Then the medical workers deliver the patient to the cardiac catheterization room to operate balloon angioplasty. In previous years, the cardiologist must utilize a PC to connect to the Intranet of the hospital and employ a special PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) image browser before he/she can check the patient’s ECG. But this will prolong the D2B time since the doctor may stay outdoors and he/she needs some time to find a PC and network. Of course, if the PC has not installed the PACS image browser, the doctor has to download and install it. Consequently, the D2B time should be worsened, thus possibly impacting the patient’s life. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a Cloud-based Electrocardiogram System, with which cardiologists can directly utilize their smart phones to browse the patient’s ECG so as to shorten the D2B time. This system has been online in a medical center in middle Taiwan for more than one year. The shortened D2B time is longer than 10 min, i.e., receiving fine results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]