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According to Alexander Vo, an associate professor in preventive medicine and community health, telemedicine is a helpful measure to be taken in order to help patients from a remote location. However, he says that problems have arose when telemedicine was used in relation to diaster relief. One example given is the earthquake in Haiti, when many technologies were donated by companies in order to promote the use of telemedicine for immediate disaster relief. Vo says that this technology was not used, especially within the first few weeks, because the locations were staffed with enough doctors. Further, even if the technology could be used, the doctors were not trained to use it, and there was no time to train them at that moment.Only after the voluntary doctors went back to their home towns could they be of any use in regard to telemedicine. The patients in need of special care could then connect with the doctors in the remote areas, however, there could be problems if the internet was down, or if the necessary hardware was destroyed due to the diaster. Even though the egagement in telemedicine was not the best for Haiti, it was seen to be of great help for a hurricane in Texas recently. Vo explains that telemedicine was successful because it was already established within the communities. The technology was available throughout the affected areas, and could be put to use immediately. The use of cell phones was also crucial, because many of the patients had pre-established access to doctors who could help diagnose and alleviate the problems of the patients in affected areas. Because the protocols were established prior to the disasters, the care was planed out to be available to the most amount of patients. Plans in advance can also taken into account the problem of damaged internet service, cables, and networks, and determine what the best plan of action is given the situation. Thus, the relief would allow the affected area to be back on track quickly, and efficientl

This article is about the idea of putting all existing medical records into electronic form. This would cut the costs needed for storage of such information, this would also increase how fast a medical official can access the records of a sick patient. However, as listed in Strand 1, there are many positive and negative social/ethical issues. One such issue is security. By making the records digitized and put into the hospital database, people without the proper authorization would not be able to gain access to the data. This can also coincide with authenticity. The information that relates to the patient should be accessible by the patient. The patient would need to be able to get through the encryption of the data. Another social/ethical issue would be the equality of access, this would allow only certain people the ability to look at the data. Even with these positive social/ethical issues there are some negative issue. One negative issue would be integrity. There are people who can hack the encryption of this data and tamper with it. This would cause the data to be different in other places and a breach in security. This would be a great help to organizing data. Using a paper file system, the doctor would have to go through a lot of papers and cabinets to find the patient's medical history. By using a paper file cabinet documents are more likely to go missing or get mixed up with another patient's records. However, by using a database this data is much more organized. There is a smaller chance of losing the patient's data, by using back-ups the data could be easily restored. There is also a much smaller change or mixing up multiple patient's data. If the wrong data was use for the wrong person, the person may not have the correct medical treatment they need. With databases the information is much more organized. The patient's data can be found very fast, compared to a paper file system (this could take more than an hour depending on the amount of patients).

Continued...The hardware involved with creating databases in the health industry would be a DBMS Engine. This is also known as a Database Managing System. This takes the logical request from DBMS subsystems and converts them to physical equivalents. This also requires interactive processing. This replaces batch processing. This allows users to interact with data through terminals and view values online in real time. By having real time the doctors can give the patients what they need at the moment the patient needs it. The stakeholders in this specific case would be the hospitals adapting the database managing system and the patients whose information is stored in this database. If the database is tampered and there are not back-ups the patient would not have his/her medical history. This could cause the patient to be on a delay for an operation that is extremely important to their life. This could also place a lawsuit on the hospital.

This article focuses specifically upon the negative implications that surface with the installation and adaptation of electronic medical records (EMR) for medical professionals targeting specifically the level of doctor/patient relationships. The author, a medical specialist within a facility, talks about his experience with the proven efficiency of the EMR system's effective retrieval of patient medical history and advanced medical database, but further accentuates emphasis on the system's flawed influence upon medical professional and patient relations. One of the primary stakeholders, the medical doctors and physicians complain that the system itself places limitations upon doctors' interactions with patients during the time of consultation (a critical part of constructing medical diagnoses); the author places emphasis upon the way he had to consistently go back and forth from the patient to the computer, in order to type in the retrieved information gained from the conversation. The act of going back and forth between patient and technological system (EMR) discouraged and urged the patient into silence, thus limiting conversation with the doctor, due to the lack of complete face to face, non interrupted evaluation and reflection of medical symptoms, history, prior experiences from the perspective of the patient. Thus, the second primary stakeholder, the patient himself, feels that he or she is not properly or fully being examined; more importantly this places the patient into the position of feeling less significant, as if his/her perspective doesn't truly matter when in reality it is the patient's responsibility to be clear and coherent with the medical professional, to help navigate the doctor into generating the correct diagnosis that will help save patient lives. The IT system involved is the EMR (electronic medical record) system that operated with the help of dozens of computer terminals that were positioned in individual workstations (hardware com

(continuation) component) and worked on the same networking service. The software programming that came with the system helped improve the retrieval and sharing of patient medical history, organization of data, efficiency and flexibility of keying in and updating medical information etc. In connection to the scenario of Health, the limiting influence forced upon doctor/patient relationships sourced from the integration of EMR systems targets a flaw in the advantage of having instant connection to patient medical information. Not only are doctors forced to focus on correctly typing in the necessary information, thus avoiding or diminishing patient relations, but the great magnitude of medical information stored and available in EMR systems, "can push some doctors into what one EMR expert refers to as "cognitive overload" while trying to balance patient input with medical history data on the spot. Furthermore, the system's software tool, such as the fee-for-service payment system, which helps tabulate symptoms while simultaneously facilitating the billing process, continues to discourage doctors from executing patient consultation. One major issue that surfaces is reliability; the EMR system itself consists of hardware and software components that transition the doctor's attention from the patient directly onto the transferring of information into the system while in the mode of confrontation. The correspondence of data with the real world comes into significance, as the data may become unreliable due to the fact that it may be entered incorrectly (the doctor may have been focusing more upon data transmission, rather than what the patient actually stated), and additionally the use of EMR systems increase the risk of data becoming outdated, for it is solely up to the doctor's skills and attention that medical history, symptoms, side effects of the patient be kept at a steady consistency once entered into the system. Thus, although physicians and he

Please use this bookmark to post your reflections. Using a Paper 2 style approach, CRITERION A) identify the IT system and describe the issues. Identify the relationship of the major stakeholders to the issues. CRITERION B) Describe step-by-step how the system works and describe how the system is related to the issue(s). CRITERION C) Evaluate the impacts on society -- both positive and negative or from differing stakeholder's P.O.V. CRITERION D) Evaluate the efficacy of a solution to the problem.

There is another issue along with this involving the ability of researchers to have full access to the information about anyone. Many people want to maintain their right to privacy, but others argue that this could lead to new knowledge about diseases, and the development of new medicines. For those who are afraid of risking their privacy, there are standards developed in order to protect them. Their information, such as SSNs are encoded for security reasons and the DNA part of the project is voluntary, and not imposed. However, ethicists are still afraid of this database. They claim that the future of DNA is a valuable thing because it can predict the probability of diseases, life expectancies, etc. But all copies can be made available to the FBI, schools, etc. at the time of birth. For the Biotech Industry, this is seen as a huge advantage because people an be tested for hundreds of diseases. The awareness of the disease is a great thing, because it could lead to early prevention. However, the system is faulty because it sometimes doesn't provide certainty of a disease and it limits a person's privacy. Other times, there is no cure for the disease, so the patient cannot do anything even if they know. In relation to this, there also will arise severe psychological impacts of a person knowing that they have the possibility for getting a life threatening disease. If this is a disease that will affect them later on in life, it would be detrimental for a person to live their life without the hope of a prosperous future. A solution to this problem could be giving patients the choice of knowing or not.

Criterion A - The IT system is the DNA database containing information about the genetic past, present, and future of the patients. The primary issues associated with this database are of privacy and anonymity. These issues arise when patients, who are one of the major stakeholders, feel that that the information in these databases shouldn't be accessible to others, or anyone for that matter. While some believe this is private information, others believe that the information should not be known by anyone because of the ethical issues associated with knowing what will come in the future. Criterion B - The medical database is a relational database meaning that it establishes relationships between different tables in the database. The smallest building blocks of a relational database are items. Items are individual pieces of information in tables. These items are organized into fields and records. Fields are columns in a table that that represent different categories of information. Records are rows that represent all the information for a specific patient. At the cross-section of a particular record and field lies the item associated with a specific piece of information related to the specified patient. These tables are related to each other through links which are established by unique primary keys assigned to each patient. This system is related to the issue of privacy because the information contained within it is considered by many to be privileged and access to it should be very limited or altogether eliminated. Criterion C - The impacts of such a database on society are varied. Some people are very against the entire idea of a genetic database because of its ethical concerns. When people have their blood analyzed for DNA, they are giving up their genetic make-up. The information that can be obtained from such tests is considered by many to be privileged, and by others to be completely unethical in every way. Often people are against very private medical

Medical boffins have redesigned the humble cameraphone, developing a strap-on microscope that's able to snap images of miniscule microbes.

Medical boffins have redesigned the humble cameraphone, developing a strap-on microscope that's able to snap images of miniscule microbes.

An article about the unsafe nature of many mobile phone applications including commerce and finance related apps. This article allows the reader to see the increasing problem of security holes of these apps and sites like Twitter who were hit with the same problems, such as "cross site scripting."

Actually, if you click on the link to the article (the one in blue) and bookmark it again (it won't loose your previous work) you can click the Cache box and it will actually cache it. Try it. Normally, you would cache it the first time you bookmark it, but that technique works after the fact.

In a way, downloading an app or downloading anything in fact is like interviewing a book or finding a reliable source. It's always better to pick from an author or publisher you know about. Usually, more well known companies will release an app and if there are a lot of people complaining about it, then they will fix it. It takes patience and control to wait for a better version to come out so that you know its safe. Additionally, people should take more caution into the apps they are using and what kind of information they are registering in it.

This article discusses the issue of individual security and invasion of ones privacy through the use of RFID tags. With RFID tags on almost ever retail item, customers who are main stake holders, are questioning the motives of these tracking codes. A major item that is being tracked is a DVD from when it is first put into its cover and sent to the store, till the costumer purchases it. However the question remains, What is the purpose of this? Is it necessary to track how the costumer uses the items that they buy? Other stake holders include the large business corporations such as Walmart, who use these RFID codes to profit from studying the purchases and trends in other stores and areas. Additionally another stakeholder that is seen as a threat is the government who may eventually be able to spy or track down individuals based on these RFID codes on the items that they purchase. This issue relates to business and employment because companies are able to economically profit through this even though the individual privacy remains a threat. These RFID tags allow businesses to profit because they can use the codes to efficiently organize the purchasing of stock and selling of items. The RFID can be considered a network that allows the hardware which is the actual code to work. Without the network tracking and creating the code, the device is unable to function. Although the customer is able to open the wrapper such as in the case of buying a DVD and throw it away, the thought still remains of what will happen in the future with these tags? There is constant dispute and consideration on how the alternate user who is the customer that purchases these items, may become a victim of privacy invasion.

This articles shows the conventional uses of RFID, and you me personally the fears of doing using such technologies. This article tells the reader that in the latest new york city marathon, the people watching wanted to track certain runners(stakeholder). So for the race each runner placed an RFID tag (Hardware 3.1) on the shoes, and on the track (set intervals) sensors would pick up these RFID tags and record the information to each individual runner. To obtain this information one would need an Iphone and 4 dollars to pay for an app that can give you up to date information. There was an issue of reliability present from the perspectives of the cell companies(AT&T). That issue was reliability, to overcome this issue they put temporary cell tower around the track. While no major issue was sparked, I was scared of what it could potentially do. This may do into the realm of sci-fi but my own issue would be survaillence, what if one day everyone was forced to where one of these, there will be these seners at every door or entry way tracking our every move(1984-George Orwell Big brother). Maybe we will have less crime since everything is monatered, but we will lose all privacy. It may be an exaggerated case but not impossible. In reality I can see it being place in our passports, ensuring more security at our flights, but what are we losing

Intel is a company that develops processing technologies such as chips that are put into computer hardware. However recently they have decided to outsource certain necessary business operation to India instead of in the US. Additionally Intel has agreed with an investment banker named Morgan Chase, to invest about 1 billion of the company's money into this plan. Intel already has many of it's workers in India however wants to expand the business by increasing its workers within the company. Workers will be needed to help expand the company a long with workers both qualified and graduates due to the increased opportunities and positions. The reasoning as to why Intel continues to offshore work to India is because they are able to find high quality workers and can get work done at cheaper/lower costs. The organization affected mainly is Intel who is able to make a profit through investing in the workforce in India. Additionally the people who are in India that are given the jobs are able to benefit because more jobs are becoming available. The negative side to this is that, they are not paid as much as Intel workers in the US. Additionally another stakeholder is the U.S government itself that frowns upon the idea of offshoring jobs due to the knowledge that by doing this, job oppertunities available to Americans will decrease. The social and ethical issues and impacts of these are related to globalization and its impacts on both the country (India) and the United States. Although workers are given jobs the pay that they receive is not as much as a worker in the U.S would. This is done for the economic benefit of the country Intel itself, allowing them to create a greater profit by off shoring jobs to India. However those who are highly qualified and trained are able to find a job at Intel that matches their level of training. Thus they become employed if they need money. A positive impact to globalization is getting rid of the digital divide in a sense because fr

The emergence of Business process outsourcing has transfigured the ways in which companies in developed nations, expand their services globally to businesses in developing nations. Although the cost for labor to support the extension of company engagement in third world countries is acknowledged as being relatively low (a beneficial advantage to most established business corporations), it has come to the attention of the participants (Businesses of developed countries) that it is of major importance to fully recognize the boundaries of business practices, culture, and level of intellectuality and experience within the hired portion of developing nation populace. Companies of information technology services, such as Dell, have come to form heightened concern about such global barriers, having attempted to transition call center labor in India and then deciding upon the withdrawal of such communication employment (due to the lack of consideration of business and cultural differences that impact business results). Based upon the data provided by NASSCOM (Indian software and services trade association), the conclusions drawn positively indicate that Business offshore processing has an overwhelming potential to grow in the next couple of years; although there is much room needed for consistent business growth (developing businesses, such as BPO in India, must rise at least 30 percent), the progression lies mainly upon the driving increase of skillful and educated information technology workers within India. The stakeholders, Information technology businesses in developed nations, surely stand by their statement supporting the increased use of qualified employers in the business environment of developing nations' companies (considered to also be additional stakeholders), for this will lower the cost involved in the off shoring process. The main social and ethical considerations lie upon reliability of developing nations'

My entire post was not posted on diigo, so here is the continuation: business functions, as developed countries' companies increasingly form reliance and trust upon the promise of the elevating skilled labor class, for it is a major component that supports the foundation of software and hardware services and networks on a globally connected basis. The reliability built within the business partnerships and bonds established in two differing cultural environments, is founded upon the agreement of mutual advancement and progress in regards to the establishment of skill by developing nations' employees. Although, the system of globalization and cultural diversity surface the obstacle of continuous intellectual and business development for developing nations, it is the gesture of surpassing cultural and business ideology that will truly trial both stakeholders involved.

- In this article, "Data Security Is No Longer an Option," written by Eve Tahmincioglu is stating that the issues that concern Groogle. Groogle is a company which is a small online travel site that can supply the same to others from this site. (Scott Larsen, IT Director for the company, Groogle.) Jon Clay (product marketing manager for Trend Micro) will help get Tokyo based security software that will help this small business result in to a faster growing business. They will require a set of requirements that will be met by 95%. The upgrades made by the security measures have increased sales. Looking on from other companies, they have seen what is known as the virtual private network which sends encrypted data one location to the other without others looking at it. This is possible because of the firewalls and he spyware filtering programs that help keep out unknown individuals. At the end they came down to a decision that says they will upgrade to an intrusion detecting system that will cost around $25,000 to $125,000. Even though they will be enhancing their system there will be one problem which is the idea of making the computer adapt to the changes.

Many useful videos on assistive devices for using IT 

This is similar to the video we watched in class a while ago. This tells me of a doctor who is helping people who are out of reach. This indicates how tele-medicine decreases the cost for patients to gain medical help. There are very few large hospitals spread over Argentina. Tele-medicine also allows hospitals to communicate with smaller clinics. The clinics can send the hospitals the symptoms of their patients. Then they can diagnose the patient and send over the results. The patients and doctors in this situation would be the stakeholders. This would be solving the social and ethical issue known as the digital divide and equality of access. By using tele-medicine doctors can access almost anyone, this cuts the problem of cost as well. This allows anyone to have access to a doctor. As said in the article "even patients in rural areas can have access to the best medical care, without the expense of traveling". This shows that even people who cannot afford to travel long distances to get the doctor. This also allows people who need the help of a specialist to use telecommunications to contact the specialist from their local doctor. However, as said in the article, the hardware needed would need to support audio, and visual components. By having visual aids, the doctors can look at the patients physical health and possibly diagnose them. The audio aids would help the doctors talk to the patients to allow them to figure out what's wrong with them. I think the best thing to use would be a webcam. This supports audio and visual aid.

This article is primarily about setting standards and protocols so that an electronic health records could world easily and securely for many health care providers and suppliers. The reason the introduction of an EHR hasn't worked before, is that there were no data-sharing standards, which would ensure that the data is transmitted securely across the internet. These standards are also in accordance of many of the interests of all of the health providers and stakeholders involved, which was a major problem previously. Without the issue of connecting the EHR from provider to provider, then the records would be a "fancy...way to capture data," and it's full potential would never be recognized. However, these new standards and protocols, filled with secure transactions based on encryptions, have made the introduction of an electronic health record possible. There are many benefits to the use of an EHR, including productivity and financial improvement for the companies and the employees. For example, doctors/nurses no longer need to spend time pulling a patient's file, or writing the details of the visit afterwards. There are also fewer repetitive tasks, and improved communication between doctor and nurse, or doctor and another doctor. Quality of care may also improve because doctors have quick access to a patient's information, there is better monitoring and discovery of chronic illnesses, and doctors can return phone calls/ provide medication refills immediately. Also, in general, the electronic charts allow for a more efficient office, which leads to a less stressful environment and more attention on the patients' care rather than searching for their charts. This can only be done through the introduction of an EHR, leading to easier queries, instant reorganization, and file management that could be transmitted to both the patient and any other doctors. This minimizes the ambiguity of not having tests results from one doctor, and allows all doctors treating a p

patient to see all of the patient's history. This is important in having a correct diagnosis and treatment. However, there are also some drawbacks. Initially, doctors who chose to engage in the implementation of a EHR, see some decreases in productivity. This is because entering information and learning how to use the software takes some time. Some doctors also do not have the money to invest in such software and accompanying hardware to, and others no not want to because they are accustomed to their hand-written charts. There are also some security issues, leading to greater privacy issues. The EHR maintains very personal data about a patient, and if the records are breached, then the privacy of the patient may be put at risk. There is also the issue of interoperability, which was brought up in the article. Many of the companies in different countries wishing to engage in the implementation of EHR have different standards involving the usage. This could harm the usage of an international EHR.

(NOT FINISHED) After the devastation of Haiti's earthquake, impoverishment plagued the millions of patients, in dire need for medical assistance and resources. The "low tech" equipment failed to meet the needs of the population, so tele medicine is being adapted.

Medical facilities in Haiti are in essence trying to integrate satellite connection and internet service (along with increased bandwidth) in order to greatly expand the distribution and administering of medical services. Donated by the other organizations in Miami, the Haitian hospitals are now given the opportunity to form intercommunication via a wireless regional network system (internet service provided by neighboring countries, such as the Dominican Republic). One of the primary stakeholders, the patient and injured Haitian individuals required to maintain necessary medical help from the American doctors and medical professionals (other primary stakeholder). Such IT systems, enable the patients suffering from the devastating results of the earthquake to retrieve an increased amount of help and attention from doctors and other medical health professionals in other parts of the world, specifically recruiting medical help centralized in the United States. The adapted procedures of tele health already in American hospitals, including the use of internet messaging, x rays, scans, and medical reports all enable doctors to obtain confrontation and collaboration with Haitian patients on accurate and more reliable grounds. The scenario included in the article is Health, and the main theme is"medical information administration and marketing sales" for this pertains to telemedicine as a branched off aspect. In regards to the social and ethical considerations, the issue of the digital divide and equality of access is greatly highlighted in the article; telemedicine linked medical services found in another nation, to the needy Haitian population thus diminishing global boundaries placed up by the differences in development and advancement in certain regions of the globe. The digital divide that took control over Haitian lives( due to the catastrophic events of the earthquake) eliminated sources of internet connection, hardware and available software equipment to run teleme

In Diigo, you can always go back in and edit your own postings. It's only in the moodle that there is a time bomb that causes you to comment on your own reflections if you go back later to expand upon your initial thoughts.

In this article the stakeholders are worried about the internet connectivity. Since many people are using it today as we speak they are watching videos, tv shows, listening to music from the Internet, and many others and would be known as stakeholders. The issue here is the reliability of the hardware. In the article it states that the copper wires that were initially put for calling which only required voice. Now it has increased with much more and in order for the internet connectivity to increase there needs to be more of a solution than fiber optic cables since it was not planted in to the ground before. The IT systems that requiring so much internet speeds are computers, mobile devices, computers within the doctors office, and many other. For tele medicine to continue there needs to sufficient or reliable internet connectivity. For instance, say a doctor wanted to help out another doctor in India. For the doctor in America it wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. If the hospital did not have its own secure internet then it would have taken a long time since other internet connectors are using it to download and upload video,stream live music, and much more. The point here is that for one to have accessibility in the internet connectivity there needs to be globalization. Globalization will help increase and satisfy almost everyone's needs.