3^rd International Conference on e-Health and Alternative Healthcare Innovations October 12-13, 2020 Prague, Czech Republic

Biography:

Sunny has completed his PhD at the age of 40 years from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He completed a Medical degree in Nigeria in 2008, and afterwards received a Presidential Merit Award from the Nigerian president for community service in 2011. He is currently the head of eHealth Division, Information and Communication Technology Department at the Federal Ministry of Health Abuja, Nigeria. He championed the development and validation of the national eHealth strategy for Nigeria and has supported relevant United Nations agencies in developing regional Digital Health strategies and policies for Africa.  
 

Abstract:

Debate regarding the impact of information communication and technology (ICT) on health outcomes has prompted researchers to conduct analyses across many parts of the globe, yet, still little is known about ICT impact in the African continent. Using a robust multivariate approach, this study examined system-wide impact of ICT diffusion on multiple health outcomes for HIV and tuberculosis among sovereign countries of Africa. This study utilized longitudinal panel data from the World Bank and International Telecommunication Union databases between 2000 and 2016. We relied on a robust linear Dynamic Panel Data model to incorporate lagged time variables to estimate the relationship between ICT infrastructure (including mobile phones, internet access, and fixed-telephone subscriptions) and HIV and tuberculosis outcomes. Econometric analyses found that the coefficients on the aggregate ICT variables were all negative but for fixed telephones for tuberculosis health measures and HIV prevalence, and positive for access to antiretroviral therapy. The diffusion of mobile phones and internet was associated with decrease incidence of tuberculosis, HIV prevalence, and tuberculosis mortality rates. However, increased diffusion of these three ICT tools facilitated increased access to antiretroviral therapy.  Study findings provide systematic evidence to inform policy regarding investments in the health sector ICT infrastructure adoption, including educating the public on the use of ICT as an alternative policy to improve population health. African governments should identify investment strategies for adopting and implementing ICT to enhance medical practice and service delivery, while reducing healthcare costs.

Biography:

Ms. Divya Sridhar has an MS in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University and an MPH from George Washington University. She is a manager with the Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) at Deloitte and Touche, and has over 6 years of experience in the federal healthcare industry.

Abstract:

Diabetic retinopathy is the leading global cause of visual impairment and blindness. Longer diabetes duration and poorer glycemic control are strongly associated with diabetic retinopathy. According to the International Diabetes Federation, there are about 41 million people with diabetes and this number is expected to rise to about 70 million by 2025. For every 5-year increase in duration of diabetes, the risk for diabetic retinopathy increases by approximately 1.89-fold.

The purpose of this study was to identify the awareness of diabetic retinopathy among the adult population who visit the Pranav outreach clinics in Chennai (India). The Pranav clinics have partnered with Unite for Sight, a United States-based global health non-profit organization, to reduce the prevalence of preventable blindness in India. The aim of the study was to identify awareness based on gender, education level, and clinical factors, such as diabetes and eye history, via survey administration.

Based on the survey results, approximately 92% of participants did not know what diabetic retinopathy was, and out of this percentage, 64% had diabetes. More than half of those who had diabetes were women. When asked how better people can understand diabetic retinopathy, 81% of participants believed visual mediums such as pamphlets with pictures on diabetes and diabetic retinopathy, and screening demos would be most effective. These results are important because targeted interventions must be implemented in rural areas within India to educate people about diabetic retinopathy and provide screening opportunities across different demographics.

Biography:

Masashi Kiguchi received his PhD in Science in 1995. He has studied various optical measurements: nonlinear spectroscopy, time-resolved spectroscopy, near-field spectroscopy, and near-infrared spectroscopy. Recently he has focused on the problems related to the principle of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurement and has developed new techniques for observing brain activities to open new research fields and in basic studies for putting them to practical use.

Abstract:

Mental disorders are significant concerns for public health, economic development, and social welfare. A key management issue facing enterprises today is ensuring that they prevent mental disorders, support return to work, and prevent recurrence. For these purposes, we propose the ‘Layered Mental Healthcare’. Mental disorders are originated from brain disorders. The brain disorder causes the physiological changes and affects behaviours. It is important to monitor each of brain, physiology, and behaviour layer, because the impact on each layer depends on individual differences and cases. Also, each care can be supplied for each layer. For behaviour layer, the PC logger and the wristband-type actimeter are used for observing workstyle and lifestyle, respectively. NIRS is useful for brain function and pulse measurement. We can understand a condition, estimate a risk and select a suitable care using these multi-modality data and AI. This system is also helpful for the validations of various cares. We have developed a prototype of a mental health monitoring system with objective biomarkers in each layer. Thirty-nine healthy office workers participated in a trial of the device in an office for four months. Cross validation revealed that the optimum linear models using multi-modality data estimated the scores of “the brief job stress questionnaire” and “K6” with the correlation coefficient of 0.76 and 0.74, respectively. Also, clusters of multi-modality data obtained by k-means had different combination patterns of sub-mood-states. Layered Mental Healthcare system is potentially useful for monitoring mental conditions to prevent mood and anxiety disorders in the workplace.

Biography:

Abstract:

COVID-19 which is also referred to as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS-COV2 is very different from its counterpart SARS-COV1 which came but dissipated spontaneously between the years 2016/17.Consequently, its vaccine was never worked on. Meanwhile COVID-19 is “a game changer” compared to COV I because it is instigating massive health havocs and deaths causing fear, confusion and quagmire of stagnation even to the global super power economies with highly developed healthcare systems e.g. Italy, USA and Spain among others. As a result, on the 11th of March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new Corona Virus disease COVID-19 outbreak; a world’s pandemic during this world’s pandemic, healthcare industry as a critical sector is rapidly becoming a target for exploitation by cyber attackers. Usually health facilities are extremely very sensitive to cyberattacks because any disruption in health intervention activities and process or even inappropriate handling of patient’s personal information can have far-reaching consequences. As waned by Control Risks’ Cyber Security Experts through alerts, there have emerged arrays of cyber threats related to COVID-19 pandemic from January 2020, with attack incidences targeting human traffic due to anxieties in Wuhan (China). There has emerged a shift in work modalities to very little face-to-face interactions. Many institutions have resorted to purely online business interactions which are always soft spot for Cybercrime incidences. As it’s gradually uncaring its tentacles in the African soil, COVID-19’s gravitational impact on human suffering might deepen with unknown consequences of healthcare delivery outcomes if online attackers targets to exploit electronic healthcare systems. With squed focus, we are likely to lose the game to Cyber crooks, giving more opportunities to COVID-19’s adverse health impacts to human race.

Biography:

Dr. Hamid Mcheick is a full professor in Computer Science department at the University of Québec at Chicoutimi, Canada. He has more than 20 years of experience in both academic and industrial area. He has done his PhD in Software Engineering and Distributed System in the University of Montreal, Canada. He is working on design and adaptation of distributed and smart software applications. He has supervised many post-doctorate, PhD, master and bachelor students. He has nine book chapters, more than 50 research papers in international journals and more than 130 research papers in international/national conference and workshop proceedings in his credit. Dr. Mcheick has given many keynote speeches and tutorials in his research area, particularly in Healthcare systems, Pervasive and Ubiquitous computing, Distributed Middleware Architectures, Software Connectors, Service Oriented Computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Edge Computing, Fog Computing, and Cloud Computing. Dr. Mcheick has gotten many grants from governments, industrials and academics. He is a chief in editor, chair, co-chair, reviewer, member in many organizations (such as IEEE, ACM, Springer, Elsevier, Inderscience) around the world.

Abstract:

The separation of concerns as a conceptual paradigm aims to manage the complexity of the software systems by dividing them into different concerns and aspects. The benefits of this paradigm such as adaptability, reusability and maintenance, have been key drivers of its adoption and usability, particularly in healthcare systems. Developing a system with adaptive, flexible and maintainable architecture requires modularity because we must be able to design a flexible system that allows us to make decisions based on context of patients. In the emerging architectures such as Cloud computing, Fog Computing, Mobile Edge Computing and Internet of Things, the fundamental characteristic of the applications is their ability to adapt or to react according to the information of the context. In this talk, I will describe briefly three adaptation approaches, such as static (Aspect-oriented Programming), composition (OSGi) and parameters (MAPE). Then, I will illustrate these approaches to support adaptability of an COPD deseases. In addition, I will give an overview of our context-aware healthcare systems.

Biography:

Obinna Emmanuel Ezeani is a Biochemist with a research interest in Public Health and health care systems. He has completed his B.Sc. at the age of 19 years from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. He has worked with the Nigerian Food and Drug Regulatory Agency (FDA) referred to as National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), during which he was involved in preparing and presenting research papers at seminars organized in the Agency, he was awarded twice consecutively as the Best research paper presenter, which stimulated more interest for research. He has completed several courses in the public health field with the recent from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health on the course titled: Defeating Malaria from the Gene to the Globe. He has written and published a couple of short-read health blogs on issues posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons to be learned.

Abstract:

Despite the growing global success in eHealth and the transition of health care systems to a more accessible form for all (eHealth), not all countries find it easy to adopt and adapt this trending health care format. Most countries are posed with huge challenges to the eHealth transition. This study is aimed to highlight some challenges faced by most countries especially the Low- and Middle- Income Countries (LMIC) in Africa, using Nigeria as a model, in the transition to and adoption of eHealth. There are a number of possible challenges/barriers to the adoption of eHealth in Nigeria some of which includes; Level of education and literacy of the general public, Poor Leadership and Governance, Poor internet services and technology, Legislation, Policy & Compliance, Infrastructure, Workforce, and so on thus, for a full-scale implementation of eHealth the aforementioned must be properly considered and solutions proffered. Some of such solutions include; implementation of robust Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in primary health care centers across the nation, regular dissemination of the right health information to a targeted population (patients, caregivers, etc.).

Biography:

Dr. Aruna Pal has completed her PhD from IVRI (Indian Veterinary Research Institute) and have 14 years of research experience in disease genetics, mitogenetics and others. She had vast experience in hospital, as doctor, as Scientist and in Teaching. She had published more than 25 research papers, books, book chapter with reputed journals and publishers. She had established laboratory, handled many extramural research projects. She is a recipient of reputed Awards at national level as well as for handling research project on Gene Editing in US. She acted as External examiner for foreign universities as well as National universities

Abstract:

SARS Cov2 is a newly emerged virus causing pandemic with fatality and co-morbidity. The greatest limitations emerged is the lack of effective treatment and vaccination due to frequent mutations and reassortment of the virus, leading to evolvement of different strains. We identified a wide variability in the whole genome sequences as well as spike protein variants (responsible for binding with ACE2 receptor) of SARS Cov2 identified globally. Structural variations of spike proteins identified from representative countries from all the continents, seven of them have revealed genetically similar, may be regarded as the dominant type.  Novel non-synonymous mutations as S247R, R408I, G612D, A930V and deletion detected at amino acid position 144 were identified and attempted to explore their functional significance. RMSD values ranging from 4.45 to 2.25 for the dominant variant spike1 with other spike proteins. This study is informative for future vaccine research and drug development with the dominant type. In the next step, we attempt to explore the innate immune response against SARS Cov2. We predicted RIGI as  an important molecule which can bind with each of the spike proteins we studied. There exists competitive binding of RIGI or ACE2 receptor with SARS Cov2 virus, the former protects the individual, while the later causes the disease.

Biography:

Houda Fakhkhari is Phd student in Health Information system at ENSIAS (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique et d’Analyse des systèmes) of Mohammed V University, Rabat Morocco, ALQUALSADI (Equipe Qualité des Architectures d'Entreprise, développement et Intégration) Team. She is a project manager at Lalla Salma Foundation – Cancer prevention and treatment, Rabat, Morocco. She unhooked her engineering degree in july 2013; in Business Intelligence at ENSIAS / Mohammed V University.

Abstract:

This paper presents the Moroccan Shared Patient Record architecture. We propose a four-layer architecture framework of a Shared Patient Record that includes business, functional, applications and technology layer descriptions taking into account the country’s context, specific needs and constraints and making sure that the patient is at the center of care.

Background. Complexity is the main challenge facing Healthcare systems. The patient care delivery involves many stakeholders such as public and private hospitals, insurance companies, care providers, Ministry of Health and many other healthcare professionals. Besides, the role of the patient has changed from a passive recipient of care to a more active participant in care delivery. Considering this mindset changes, there should be a Shared Patient Record that promotes the coordinated and continuous care delivery, the data and information sharing, the easy access to relevant information and finally the usage of a standard nomenclature and a centralized health information repository in order to normalize the healthcare delivery in Morocco and then ensure a national access to quality care.

Biography:

M M H Jayasekara is a doctor working in Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Sri Lanka. She is an MBBS graduate from University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Currently researching in health informatics and related disciplines.

Abstract:

Objective : To report the results of a systematic review of national eHealth policies of different countries in relation to patient consent in patient data processing in electronic health records Method eHealth policies of 19 (14.07%) countries are reviewed with regard to patient consent, from a total of 135 countries that are indexed in the World Health Organization Directory of eHealth Policies. 68 (50.37%) policies were excluded based on language and 67 policies in English were selected for further consideration. These 67 (49.62%) policies were further evaluated resulting in exclusion of 43 (31.85%) policies due to policies being outdated and 5 (3.70%) due to broken links. Finally, a total of 19 (14.07%) countries were selected for the review. Results 57.89% out of 19 countries require patients’ informed consent to store patient data, 26.32% allow selective storage of patient data as defined by the patient, 89.47% require patients’ informed consent when sharing or transferring or accessing patient data, 68.42% of the countries allow patients access their own EHR, 73.68% facilitate correction/modification in EHR, and 26.32% facilitate deletion of patient records. 89.47% of countries highlight mechanisms to assure privacy and security of EHR. Conclusion Policymakers’ emphasis on various ethical concerns raised by EHRs has been increased highlighting patient rights related to eHealth as well as the requirement for compliance to different standards and regulations. eHealth policies must address requiring patients’ informed consent in processing of patient data whereas patients have the ability to grant or withhold consent to different processing operations related to their EHR. Furthermore, facilitating patients with access to their own records, facilitating patients with modification, correction and deletion of EHR are widely discussed topics.
Keywords eHealth, Patient Consent, EHR, Patient Rights

Biography:

Abstract:

Mental health illnesses have become extremely common in the world in our recent times. Most governments are striving to ensure citizens do not have to go through the anguish that comes with it. At its peak, if mental illnesses are not checked they could lead to someone committing suicide, especially amongst the youth. The problem that exists however is that sometimes accessing mental health management services is very expensive and the counsellors who are entrusted with this task are mostly not accessible to people who don’t have money. Apart from that, there has been so much stigmatization in our country and in Africa, especially among men.

The objective of the study was to come up with a mental health innovation application, whose objective is utilization of information technology to help manage this mental health crisis, by filling the gap between the mental health patient and services such as counselling as well as having access to other mental health management services such as relaxing music from the application and producing to do lists that will help the patient have a better state of mind. With ICT adoption, the users/patients can be able to gain access to blog articles from mental health experts as well as other users who were going through a hard time and what they did to overcome it.

The literature review that exists will show that more application developers have made an effort to curb this enigma by developing solutions geared towards this objective. This is in a bid to curb the existing challenges in seeking mental health illnesses that include high expenses, privacy issues as well as social stigma. The existing systems were however found to mostly revolve around counseling alone, which was still insufficient in management of mental health issues.

With best practice in ICT utilization, the methodology of the research was conducted by random sampling and was conducted in the context of the United States International University-Africa, where surveys and questionnaires were used and the data analyzed using excel and google forms. The greatest finding was that most respondents preferred the medical access innovation application majorly due to the fact that it was not only a tool to access counselors, but that it offered multiple mental health management platforms such as blogs, to-do list, meditation and chatting with other people.