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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Digital Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2021) | Viewed by 60203

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ricky C. Leung

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1. School of Public Health, University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA
2. NUS Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119245, Singapore
Interests: artificial intelligence (AI); machine learning (ML); deep learning; AI/ML applications; health information technology; health analytics; global health; organization and management theory; technological innovation; Internet of Things; health security; big data; electronic health records; social media and mobile health
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Dear Colleagues,

The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) has organized a Special Issue entitled “Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management: A Global Perspective”. IJERPH is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open-access journal in the area of environmental research and public health. More information about the journal can be found on https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

Innovation is at the core of clinical healthcare and health management in the 21st century. Within the domain of health information technology (HIT), for instance, electronic health records have enabled health providers to offer improved diagnosis and treatment with a better grasp of the patient’s medical history. Telehealth devices have narrowed the distance barrier, allowing physicians and patients from different places of the world to meet virtually. Even social media applications and mobile devices have entered healthcare in recent years. Patients have exchanged health information and emotional support via social media channels, whereas mobile applications have been developed to monitor patients’ recovery progress, increase medication adherence, and provide guidance for exercises, among other purposes.

With all these exciting developments, HIT has opened up a number of important research and practical questions, particularly in the areas of data analytics and security. First, it is unclear what analytic techniques are most suited to combine data of different formats generated from diverse digital devices. To what extent can researchers recycle old analytic techniques and apply them to big data research in health? At the same time, data transfers have increased exponentially between health care organizations, accompanied by new security and privacy concerns among providers and patients. Yet, the research community has yet to develop adequate new theories and methods to address these concerns and other unintended consequences of HIT-related innovations. What have we learned from previous research to guide HIT-related innovations? Have researchers come up with new theoretical insights in this emerging area?

In this Special Issue, we are seeking methodological or technological manuscripts that will offer new insights about HIT-related innovations, broadly defined. We welcome manuscripts that address (but are not limited to) the following issues:

Descriptions of development, implementation, validation, or the evaluation of HIT-innovations;
Data analytics research on the relationships between health technology and the performance of health organizations in the global context;
Theory development for HIT and related digital health devices;
Secondary and tertiary studies such as bibliometric studies, systematic literature reviews, mapping studies, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses in any area related to HIT-innovations;
Empirical studies (case studies, experiments, and surveys) applied to any subject related to any HIT (broadly defined) in high- and/or low-resource environments.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me before submitting your manuscript to IJERPH. I look forward to your contributions. Thank you very much for your attention.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ricky C. Leung
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Health information technology
Social media
Telehealth
Mobile health
M-health or e-health
Technological innovations
Global health security

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2nd Edition: Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 2269 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring a Fuzzy Rule Inferred ConvLSTM for Discovering and Adjusting the Optimal Posture of Patients with a Smart Medical Bed

by Francis Joseph Costello, Min Gyeong Kim, Cheong Kim and Kun Chang Lee

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(12), 6341; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126341 - 11 Jun 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2770

Abstract

Several countries nowadays are facing a tough social challenge caused by the aging population. This public health issue continues to impose strain on clinical healthcare, such as the need to prevent terminal patients’ pressure ulcers. Provocative approaches to resolve this issue include health information technology (HIT). In this regard, this paper explores one technological solution based on a smart medical bed (SMB). By integrating a convolutional neural network (CNN) and long-short term memory (LSTM) model, we found this model enhanced performance compared to prior solutions. Further, we provide a fuzzy inferred solution that can control our proposed proprietary automated SMB layout to optimize patients’ posture and mitigate pressure ulcers. Therefore, our proposed SMB can allow autonomous care to be given, helping prevent medical complications when lying down for a long time. Our proposed SMB also helps reduce the burden on primary caregivers in fighting against staff shortages due to public health issues such as the increasing aging population. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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21 pages, 1292 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Healthcare at Your Fingertips: The Acceptance and Adoption of Mobile Medical Treatment Services among Chinese Users

by Qingchuan Li

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(18), 6895; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186895 - 21 Sep 2020

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4333

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) services have recently been receiving increasing attention. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how users accept and adopt mobile medical treatment (MMT) services, some of the most promising mHealth services that aim to extend the patient–physician relationship beyond the conventional clinic environment. To fill this research gap, this study proposes a research model for predicting consumers’ acceptance behavior toward MMT services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). A survey was conducted among 303 Chinese MMT service users to evaluate the proposed model and relevant hypotheses using partial least squares. Several key findings were summarized from the results: (1) the attitude toward using MMT, technology anxiety, and trust are significantly associated with users’ behavioral intention to use MMT services; (2) the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and trust significantly influence users’ attitude toward using MMT services; (3) the perceived interactivity, perceived personalization, and privacy concerns have significant impacts on users’ perceptions of ease of use, usefulness, and trust toward MMT services. The current findings have both theoretical and practical implications that may guide practitioners and researchers to better understand consumers’ acceptance of MMT services. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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9 pages, 910 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Psychometric Proprieties of a Mobile Application to Measure the Craniovertebral Angle a Validation and Reliability Study

by Tomas Gallego-Izquierdo, Enrique Arroba-Díaz, Gema García-Ascoz, María del Alba Val-Cano, Daniel Pecos-Martin and Roberto Cano-de-la-Cuerda

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(18), 6521; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186521 - 8 Sep 2020

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3904

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the mobile application forward head posture in terms of validity, inter- and intra-rater reliability, minimum detectable change, sensitivity, and specificity to measure craniovertebral angle. In total, 44 subjects (mean age 23.30 ± 4.44 years) were evaluated in the standing position with markers on the tragus and cutaneous prominence of seventh cervical vertebra (C7). We had two experienced and trained physiotherapists assess cervical posture using the mobile application forward head posture and photogrammetry. Intraclass correlation coefficients were used to determine validity and reliability. A contingency table was made to determine sensitivity and specificity. Intra-rater reliability of the mobile application forward head posture had an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.88. The inter-rater reliability generated an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.83 to 0.89. Criterion validity data were above 0.82. The minimum detectable change was 4.96° for intra-rater and 5.52° for inter-rater reliability. The smartphone application exhibited 94.4% sensitivity and 84.6% specificity. The smartphone application forward head posture is a valid and reliable tool to measure craniovertebral angle in a standing position and, therefore, could be a useful assessment tool in clinical practice. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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12 pages, 960 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effect of Age, Gender, and Job on Skin Conductance Response among Smartphone Users Who are Prohibited from Using Their Smartphone

by Hsiu-Fen Hsieh, Hsin-Tien Hsu, Pei-Chao Lin, Yu-Jen Yang, Yu-Tung Huang, Chih-Hung Ko and Hsiu-Hung Wang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(7), 2313; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072313 - 30 Mar 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3669

Abstract

The smartphone is a widely used and rapidly growing phenomenon worldwide, and problematic smartphone use is common in our society. This study’s objective was to examine the gender difference of baseline and post-intervention skin conductance response (SCR) among smartphone users and explore the relationships among problematic smartphone use level, anxiety level, and SCR changes by evaluating SCR, the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale score, and the Chinese version of the Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI) score in a one-group baseline and post-test design. Sixty participants were recruited from two communities, and data were collected from April to June 2017. There was a significant difference in terms of SCR changes between young males and old males and between young females and old females. Additionally, the SCR changes in young females were significantly greater than those in young males with twofold mean difference. This study provides strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of SCR measurement for assessing problematic smartphone use (PSU) anxiety when users are in a withdrawal-like state. The SCR measurement can help healthcare providers identify cases with risk factors of PSU for early intervention. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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12 pages, 881 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring Doctors’ Willingness to Provide Online Counseling Services: The Roles of Motivations and Costs

by Jiahe Chen, Yi-Chen Lan, Yu-Wei Chang and Po-Ya Chang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(1), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17010110 - 22 Dec 2019

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 5684

Abstract

With the impetus of information communication technology (ICT), emerging eHealth has attracted increasing number of doctors’ participation in online health platforms, which provide various potential benefits to doctors. However, previous studies on eHealth have seldom distinguished different service modes provided by doctors. In addition, the bulk of the literature has considered doctors’ motivations based solely on online environments. To fill this gap, this study combines expectancy theory and the Bagozzi, Dholakia, and Basuroy (BDB) model to examine the relationships between anticipated outcomes, performance expectations, and effort intentions from online and offline perspectives. Doctors’ behavioral intentions are further divided into two categories: the willingness to offer free services and paid services. Using SmartPLS, this study conducts structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze 311 sample data. The results show that extrinsic motivations (i.e., extrinsic rewards, expected relationships, and image) and intrinsic motivation (i.e., a sense of self-worth) significantly influence the desire to serve patients well, which in turn positively affects the willingness to offer free services and the willingness to offer paid services. Moreover, counseling time is confirmed as the main cost, which negatively moderates the relationships between desire and behavioral intentions. The findings provide theoretical insights for eHealth and provide practical suggestions to develop marketing strategies for online health platform providers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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14 pages, 3409 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Workflow and Strategies for Recruitment and Retention in Longitudinal 3D Craniofacial Imaging Study

by Rafael Denadai, Junior Chun-Yu Tu, Ya-Ru Tsai, Yi-Ning Tsai, Emma Yuh-Jia Hsieh, Betty CJ Pai, Chih-Hao Chen, Alex Kane, Lun-Jou Lo and Pang-Yun Chou

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(22), 4438; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224438 - 12 Nov 2019

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3025

Abstract

Longitudinal epidemiological studies are considered the gold standard for understanding craniofacial morphologic development, but participant recruitment and retention can be challenging. This study describes strategies used to recruit and maintain a high level of participation in a longitudinal study involving annual three-dimensional (3D) craniofacial soft-tissue imaging from healthy Taiwanese Chinese elementary school students aged 6 to 12 years. The key aspects for project delineation, implementation, and the initial three-year practical experiment are portrayed in an integrated multistep workflow: ethics- and grant-related issues; contact, approval, and engagement from partners of the project (school stakeholders and parents); a didactic approach to recruit the students; research staff composition with task design; three station-based data collection days with two educative activities (oral hygiene and psychosocial interaction stations) and one 3D craniofacial imaging activity; and reinforcement tactics to sustain the longitudinal annual participation after the first enrollment. Randomly selected students and teachers answered an experience satisfaction questionnaire (five-point Likert scale ranging from one to five) designed to assist in understanding what they think about the data collection day. Measures of frequency (percentage) and central tendency (mean) were adopted for descriptive analysis. Six of seven contacted schools accepted participation in the project. All parents who attended the explanatory meetings agreed to join the project. A cohort of 676 students (336 girls) participated at baseline enrollment, with a follow-up rate of 96% in the second data collection. The average questionnaire-related scores were 4.2 ± 0.7 and 4.4 ± 0.6 for teachers and students, respectively. These 3D craniofacial norms will benefit multidisciplinary teams managing cleft-craniofacial deformities in the globally distributed ethnic Chinese population, particularly useful for phenotypic variation characterization, conducting quantitative morphologic comparisons, and therapeutic planning and outcome assessment. The described pathway model will assist other groups to establish their own age-, sex-, and ethnic-specific normative databases. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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13 pages, 768 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Why Do Patients Move from Online Health Platforms to Hospitals? The Perspectives of Fairness Theory and Brand Extension Theory

by Wei Le, Po-Ya Chang, Yu-Wei Chang and Jiahe Chen

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(19), 3755; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193755 - 6 Oct 2019

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4191

Abstract

Online healthcare services are growing rapidly. Patients can receive health support through communication with online health professionals. However, previous research on eHealth has focused on patients’ online behavioral intentions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of online patient–doctor communication on offline behavioral intentions and to propose a conceptual model for eHealth. We integrate fairness theory and band extension theory to develop a research model. This is further tested by structural equation modeling (SEM), with 279 valid sets of data from patients on the online health platform. Using partial least squares analysis (PLS), the results show that perceived fairness is an important factor affecting online satisfaction and the willingness to ask online doctors, which in turn has a positive impact on the willingness to go to offline doctors. These findings shed light on the research model for eHealth and offer suggestions for improving patients’ online satisfaction, as well as both online and offline behavioral intentions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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18 pages, 3159 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Validity of Google Trends Search Volumes for Behavioral Forecasting of National Suicide Rates in Ireland

by Joana M. Barros, Ruth Melia, Kady Francis, John Bogue, Mary O’Sullivan, Karen Young, Rebecca A. Bernert, Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhmann and Jim Duggan

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(17), 3201; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16173201 - 2 Sep 2019

Cited by 47 | Viewed by 10124

Abstract

Annual suicide figures are critical in identifying trends and guiding research, yet challenges arising from significant lags in reporting can delay and complicate real-time interventions. In this paper, we utilized Google Trends search volumes for behavioral forecasting of national suicide rates in Ireland between 2004 and 2015. Official suicide rates are recorded by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland. While similar investigations using Google trends data have been carried out in other jurisdictions (e.g., United Kingdom, United Stated of America), such research had not yet been completed in Ireland. We compiled a collection of suicide- and depression-related search terms suggested by Google Trends and manually sourced from the literature. Monthly search rate terms at different lags were compared with suicide occurrences to determine the degree of correlation. Following two approaches based on vector autoregression and neural network autoregression, we achieved mean absolute error values between 4.14 and 9.61 when incorporating search query data, with the highest performance for the neural network approach. The application of this process to United Kingdom suicide and search query data showed similar results, supporting the benefit of Google Trends, neural network approach, and the applied search terms to forecast suicide risk increase. Overall, the combination of societal data and online behavior provide a good indication of societal risks; building on past research, our improvements led to robust models integrating search query and unemployment data for suicide risk forecasting in Ireland. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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8 pages, 1806 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Significant Cellular Viability Dependence on Time Exposition at ELF-EMF and RF-EMF In Vitro Studies

by Olga García-Minguillán López, Ana Jiménez Valbuena and Ceferino Maestú Unturbe

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(12), 2085; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16122085 - 13 Jun 2019

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4062

Abstract

The human concern about the effect of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) has changed over time from the effects produced by EMFs of extremely low frequencies (ELFs) to the effects produced by exposure to a radio frequency (RF), with concerns shifting toward EMFs due to the development of new technologies and forms of communication. Previous studies have analysed the effects produced at different frequencies without considering in detail the effect of the time of exposure. Therefore, in the present study, we analysed in vitro the effect produced by a 100 µT EMF at different ELFs and exposure times in glioblastomas, as well as the effect produced in a fibroblast by an RF-EMF of 2.54 GHz. Our results indicate a significant time dependence in cell viability of fibroblasts exposed to an RF-EMF of 2.54 GHz and a non-time-dependent effect in cell viability of glioblastomas exposed to an ELF-EMF, highlighting the possible relation between frequency and time of exposure. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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Review

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15 pages, 2060 KiB

Open AccessReview

Surgical Interventions for Inferior Turbinate Hypertrophy: A Comprehensive Review of Current Techniques and Technologies

by Baharudin Abdullah and Sharanjeet Singh

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(7), 3441; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073441 - 26 Mar 2021

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 17073

Abstract

Surgical treatment of the inferior turbinates is required for hypertrophic inferior turbinates refractory to medical treatments. The main goal of surgical reduction of the inferior turbinate is to relieve the obstruction while preserving the function of the turbinate. There have been a variety of surgical techniques described and performed over the years. Irrespective of the techniques and technologies employed, the surgical techniques are classified into two types, the mucosal-sparing and non-mucosal-sparing, based on the preservation of the medial mucosa of the inferior turbinates. Although effective in relieving nasal block, the non-mucosal-sparing techniques have been associated with postoperative complications such as excessive bleeding, crusting, pain, and prolonged recovery period. These complications are avoided in the mucosal-sparing approach, rendering it the preferred option. Although widely performed, there is significant confusion and detachment between current practices and their basic objectives. This conflict may be explained by misperception over the myriad of available surgical techniques and misconception of the rationale in performing the turbinate reduction. A comprehensive review of each surgical intervention is crucial to better define each procedure and improve understanding of the principle and mechanism involved. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Technological Innovation in Clinical Healthcare and Health Management)

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