8^th International Conference on Health Informatics & Telemedicine September 28-29, 2018 | Chicago, Illinois, USA

Biography:

Chencho Tshering is currently working as an Associate Lecturer in the college of Language and Culture Studies. He holds a B.A. in Language and Culture from the same college, and also Master in English (Literature) from Sharda University, Delhi, India. He is currently involved in research on ‘Tangible and In-tangible Culture’ in Trongsa district for the Bhutan Cultural Atlas Project.

Abstract:

My interest in local healing intrigued in the year 2012 when I fractured my leg playing football. I was admitted to the hospital for treatment, but while I was in the hospital I met a friend from Sherubling High School, who suggested that rather than be treated in the hospital I should go to a local healer. Impressed by the results of the treatment I have received, I decided to investigate this unique approach to healing, which is at risk of being lost.

In this presentation, I will share the findings and data collected through interviewing a traditional healer, who lives in Trongsa district, central part of Bhutan. This healer is one of only a few traditional healers remaining in the district, and is well renowned locally for his skill in this craft. Even, patients from other districts occasionally seek his services. I will share how my own fractures were treated by this healer, and also how he approaches treating fractures and joint problems in general. He communicates the values and benefits of his approach to healing, and also expresses concerns regarding the lack of interest people, especially youth, show in preserving these practices. Nevertheless, a message of optimism comes through the narrative of this interviewee, who believes that there is still a future for this traditional practice.

Biography:

Valerie Umaefulam is a PhD candidate at the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. Her background is in Optometry and Public Health and has worked on various mobile health programs/initiatives in Africa.

Abstract:

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is an ocular complication of diabetes and the most common cause of blindness in North America especially among adults. In Canada, there is increasing prevalence of diabetes in Indigenous women with an elevated risk of developing DR. Poor eye health literacy amongst other social determinants of health lead to late diagnosis and vision loss in persons living with diabetes. Low compliance to recommended annual diabetic eye screening which may be due to poor understanding of diabetic eye compications prompts the need to explore innovative ways to increase awareness and influence eye care use. The researchers examined factors that motivate and constrain Indigenous women with diabetes or at-risk of diabetes in Saskatoon, Canada from adopting healthy eye care behaviors and identified the changes in DR awareness and eye care behavior as a result of a mHealth education intervention.

This is a mixed methods before-and-after study and data was collected via sharing circles and surveys. Pre-intervention DR awareness and eye care behavior data was collected from participants. Thereafter, participants received daily diabetes-eye related education via mobile text messages for 12 weeks. Post intervention, participants will be evaluated to determine the impact of the mHealth education on DR awareness and eye care behavior. The mHealth intervention is presently on-going. Results will be available June 2018. We anticipate that the study will provide culturally appropriate eye care information to Indigenous women in order to empower them in making informed eye health choices and spur diabetes eye care behavior change.

Biography:

Dr. Riddhi Vyas moved to the United States in the year of 2004. She completed her Masters in Bioinformatics from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2004 and completed Ph.D. in Biomedical informatics at the Rutgers University of New Jersey in the year 2016. She has earned best academic student award during her Ph.D. She also has four years of working experience in the pharmaceutical industries as Clinical and Statistical Data Analyst. She is currently an instructor in the Department of Health Informatics at Rutgers University School of Health Professions (describe what you are teaching). Her research interests are mainly in health outcome research. She has published and reviewed papers in the international journal.

Abstract:

Lung cancer is a condition of abnormal growth of cells starts in the lung(s), which has the ability to multiply and travel to the entire human body in short period of time. Lung cancer is the second most deadly cancer in the world after prostate cancer in the male and breast cancer in the female. Every year approximately more than a million and a half death would have occurred by lung cancer. In the year of 2017, there are approximately 222,500 new cases and 155,870 death cases are reported in the US. Advanced technology has created a number of treatments and medical options to treat lung cancer but those procedures have intolerable side effects, as a result, the survival rate of the lung cancer has not improved much. The goal of current study is to review the national trends of available procedures for in-hospital treatment of lung cancer. We are using the national inpatient sample(NIS) database from the year 2003 to 2011, which has information about patients hospitalized with a principal diagnosis with the principal procedure. We have extracted data from NIS using principle diagnosis ICD 9 code for lung cancer. We have classified lung cancer procedures into three categories (based on principal diagnosis ICD 9 code) “Surgical”,”Non-Surgical” and “Others”. We found 15,774 lung cancer patients, where admitted to the hospital. The percentage of “Non- Surgical” procedures and “Other” categories remains consistently lower(1.2%), whereas Surgical procedure increased by (6-8%) over a period of time. We have also included other demographic factors like Age, Race, Gender, Length of stay in the hospital, Total charges, Type of admission to the hospital and Payers. We have included these factors in reviewing national trends to see their significant association in the selection of treatment options for lung cancer.

Biography:

With 6 years of writing on business and technology, Lola is a Healthcare Industry Analyst at ScienceSoft, an IT consulting company headquartered in McKinney, Texas. Being a HIMSS member, she focuses on Healthcare IT, highlighting the industry challenges and technology solutions that tackle them. Lola’s articles explore chronic disease management, mHealth, healthcare data analytics, value-based care delivery, medical image analysis, CMS regulations and more

Abstract:

As soon as HF patients are discharged from a hospital, the countdown starts. 30 days, 60, 90. If a patient avoids readmission during these timeframes, it indicates a successful recovering. Still, nearly 1 in 4 patients is readmitted within 30 days of discharge.

Providers can change the unsettling statistics by staying informed about the HF patient’s health status changes after the discharge. At ScienceSoft, we’ve come to the idea that technology can provide a tool to track patient’s recovery process and allow providers to intervene when it is necessary, avoiding readmissions. We dedicate this webinar to discovering the opportunities of mHealth applications for powering selfi-management in patients with heart failure and providing them with timely feedback from providers. We will discuss:

• The reasons why current HF readmission prevention measures aren’t effective enough
• Key elements of effective readmission prevention
• mHealth as an additional HF readmission prevention measure
• How mHealth enables continuous support of patients’ health needs: Real-life success story
• The end-to-end mobile heart failure system concept

Case examples