Decision Support System for the Location of Healthcare Facilities


Book Description

The book examines an integrated approach for addressing decisions about the location of healthcare facilities. Supported by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), the approach provides comprehensive information on territory, taking into account the spatial dimensions. Due to the multiple criteria involved, site selection for urban facilities is a crucial topic in planning decision processes, especially for healthcare facilities. Healthcare provision policies generally fail to address the distribution of facilities within cities, entrusting decisions to various stakeholders. Moreover current evaluation tools focus on the intrinsic performances of healthcare structures, disregarding the extrinsic characteristics, namely those related to the location. Starting with a cross-disciplinary literature review, the book describes a multi-methodological approach for decision-making regarding the location of healthcare facilities, and presents an innovative evaluation tool that simultaneously considers functional, locational, environmental and economic issues, providing a comprehensive overview of the areas under investigation.




Fundamentals of Clinical Data Science


Book Description

This open access book comprehensively covers the fundamentals of clinical data science, focusing on data collection, modelling and clinical applications. Topics covered in the first section on data collection include: data sources, data at scale (big data), data stewardship (FAIR data) and related privacy concerns. Aspects of predictive modelling using techniques such as classification, regression or clustering, and prediction model validation will be covered in the second section. The third section covers aspects of (mobile) clinical decision support systems, operational excellence and value-based healthcare. Fundamentals of Clinical Data Science is an essential resource for healthcare professionals and IT consultants intending to develop and refine their skills in personalized medicine, using solutions based on large datasets from electronic health records or telemonitoring programmes. The book’s promise is “no math, no code”and will explain the topics in a style that is optimized for a healthcare audience.




Public Health Informatics and Information Systems


Book Description

This revised edition covers all aspects of public health informatics and discusses the creation and management of an information technology infrastructure that is essential in linking state and local organizations in their efforts to gather data for the surveillance and prevention. Public health officials will have to understand basic principles of information resource management in order to make the appropriate technology choices that will guide the future of their organizations. Public health continues to be at the forefront of modern medicine, given the importance of implementing a population-based health approach and to addressing chronic health conditions. This book provides informatics principles and examples of practice in a public health context. In doing so, it clarifies the ways in which newer information technologies will improve individual and community health status. This book's primary purpose is to consolidate key information and promote a strategic approach to information systems and development, making it a resource for use by faculty and students of public health, as well as the practicing public health professional. Chapter highlights include: The Governmental and Legislative Context of Informatics; Assessing the Value of Information Systems; Ethics, Information Technology, and Public Health; and Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security. Review questions are featured at the end of every chapter. Aside from its use for public health professionals, the book will be used by schools of public health, clinical and public health nurses and students, schools of social work, allied health, and environmental sciences.




Research Anthology on Decision Support Systems and Decision Management in Healthcare, Business, and Engineering


Book Description

Decision support systems (DSS) are widely touted for their effectiveness in aiding decision making, particularly across a wide and diverse range of industries including healthcare, business, and engineering applications. The concepts, principles, and theories of enhanced decision making are essential points of research as well as the exact methods, tools, and technologies being implemented in these industries. From both a standpoint of DSS interfaces, namely the design and development of these technologies, along with the implementations, including experiences and utilization of these tools, one can get a better sense of how exactly DSS has changed the face of decision making and management in multi-industry applications. Furthermore, the evaluation of the impact of these technologies is essential in moving forward in the future. The Research Anthology on Decision Support Systems and Decision Management in Healthcare, Business, and Engineering explores how decision support systems have been developed and implemented across diverse industries through perspectives on the technology, the utilizations of these tools, and from a decision management standpoint. The chapters will cover not only the interfaces, implementations, and functionality of these tools, but also the overall impacts they have had on the specific industries mentioned. This book also evaluates the effectiveness along with benefits and challenges of using DSS as well as the outlook for the future. This book is ideal for decision makers, IT consultants and specialists, software developers, design professionals, academicians, policymakers, researchers, professionals, and students interested in how DSS is being used in different industries.




Clinical Decision Support Systems


Book Description

Written by nationally and internationally recognised experts on the design, evaluation and application of such systems, this book examines the impact of practitioner and patient use of computer-based diagnostic tools. It serves simultaneously as a resource book on diagnostic systems for informatics specialists; a textbook for teachers or students in health or medical informatics training programs; and as a comprehensive introduction for clinicians, with or without expertise in the applications of computers in medicine, who are interested in learning about current developments in computer-based diagnostic systems. Designed for a broad range of clinicians in need of decision support.




Intelligent Decision Support Systems—A Journey to Smarter Healthcare


Book Description

The goal of this book is to provide, in a friendly and refreshing manner, both theoretical concepts and practical techniques for the important and exciting field of Artificial Intelligence that can be directly applied to real-world healthcare problems. Healthcare – the final frontier. Lately, it seems like Pandora opened the box and evil was released into the world. Fortunately, there was one thing left in the box: hope. In recent decades, hope has been increasingly represented by Intelligent Decision Support Systems. Their continuing mission: to explore strange new diseases, to seek out new treatments and drugs, and to intelligently manage healthcare resources and patients. Hence, this book is designed for all those who wish to learn how to explore, analyze and find new solutions for the most challenging domain of all time: healthcare.




Decision Support Systems VII. Data, Information and Knowledge Visualization in Decision Support Systems


Book Description

This book constitutes the proceedings of the Third International Conference on Decision Support Systems, ICDSST 2017, held in Namur, Belgium, in May 2017. The EWG-DSS series of the International Conference on Decision Support System Technology (ICDSST) offers a platform for European and international DSS communities, comprising the academic and industrial sectors, in order to present state-of-the-art DSS research and developments, to discuss current challenges that surround decision-making processes, to exchange ideas about realistic and innovative solutions, and to co-develop potential business opportunities. The main topic of this year’s conference was “Data, Information and Knowledge Visualization in Decision Making”. The 13 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: visualization case studies; visualization perspectives; analytics and decision; and Multi-Criteria Decision Making.




Crossing the Quality Chasm


Book Description

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement change.




The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century


Book Description

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.




Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries


Book Description

Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.