The Contribution of Technologies to Promote Healthy Aging and Prevent Frailty in Elderly People

In this chapter, the author discusses the contribution of technological achievements and ICT applications to prevent or reverse frailty in elderly people and to promote active and healthy aging. After a theoretical and political reflection about the issues associated to a new paradigm of aging in current societies, the author underlines the potentialities of technology as a complementary mechanism to achieve alternative and innovative responses as well as integrated and multidimensional policies and actions.

The Emerging Concept of an Inclusive mHealth Ecosystem in India

The reason for considering ICT-based communication platforms, especially mobile phones, as the most efficacious media tool to interconnect health care providers, practitioners and other stakeholders to a substantially large number of consumers in the healthcare system is that the mobile phone subscribers in India has reached to 1,013.23 million in the third quarter of 2018. The prices of smartphones have also come down by 11 percent with a demand for 4G devices capturing 6 percent of smartphone unit demand in India. Hence, it is an appropriate time to understand that the future of healthcare business in India lies with mobile based healthcare services. This chapter explores some of the significant innovations taking place in mobile healthcare business in India and examines the emerging approach of integrated health care ecosystems to provide quality health services to everyone where and when it is required.

Spatio-Temporal Hot Spot Analysis of Epidemic Diseases Using Geographic Information System for Improved Healthcare

Health-care systems aid in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases. Epidemiology deals with the demographic study on frequency, distribution and determinants of disease in order to provide better health-care. Today information technology has made data pervasive i.e. data is available anywhere and in abundance. GIS in epidemiology enables prompt services to mankind or people at risk. It brings out health-care services that are amicable for prevention and control of disease spread. This could be achieved when epidemiology data is modeled considering temporal and spatial factors and using data driven computation techniques over such models. This chapter discusses 1) the need for integrating GIS and epidemiology, 2) various case studies that indicates the need for spatial analysis being performed on epidemiologic data, 3) few techniques involved in the spatial analysis, 4) functionalities provided by some of the widely used GIS software packages and tools.

The Hidden Face of Medical Intervention

In health promotion discourses, access to medical care is presented as a universal remedy. As a result, ethical considerations are often limited to the issue of equitable access. Yet focusing on access to healthcare hides the issue of access to data needed for scientific development. Putting into place a system for saving lives involves population health monitoring and is founded on scientific rationality. This chapter refocuses political attention from medical intervention to what makes it possible. In doing so, the underlying ethical issue shifts from a concern with universal access to healthcare—considered a right from an equity standpoint—to a discussion of the options and consequences of a type of government based on science. The author puts forward the idea that it is not because it is technically and scientifically possible to do something that it should be done. To illustrate this argument, the chapter discusses the example of The Lancet's project on stillbirths (2011-2030) taken up by the WHO.

Healing Cultural Personae With the Media Dream

Issues of cultural morality and health in a mediated reality of simulated illusion may be addressed with Jungian principles. The psychological dynamics of interactive images projected as media images correspond with psychological dream images as defined by Carl G. Jung. Therefore, images in the media mirror patterns of energy and information in what Jung called the collective unconscious. Dream dynamics may be used to address global political hacking, cyber warfare, and neuromarketing with ICTs.

Managing End-of-Life Information in Palliative Care

In this chapter, the author develop a sociological analysis of the role played by professional management of information about patients' end-of-life (EoL) processes in palliative care (PC). Thus the author will thus highlight the processes by which PC professionals manage private health information about patients in the frame of this type of care. Thus the author will show how managing information about prospective EoL trajectories by healthcare professionals is one of the major challenges in their daily work in PC wards. The author verifies that, in these contexts, patients and their families and members of the healthcare teams tend to have different experiential and personal careers in their relation with disease, the organization of care, and EoL trajectories, whose confrontation at the level of interaction produces complex effects in social processes that occur in daily activity contexts of PC.

Approaching Information Architecture for a Market Intelligence System Based on Emerging Technologies

It was observed, in these last years, the consolidation of the market intelligence (MI) concept as a source of competitive results in several strategic ways, impacting decision-making and entrepreneurship. This article intends to explore the conceptualization of the MI process, observing specially its application in Healthcare sector under the emergence of new technologies. Approaching the healthcare market, a framework for an intelligence system for marketing decisions was discussed and it is now evaluated with the contribution of information architecture and new technologies concepts. The review formerly produced is updated regarding the focus of the MI system under the influences and potentialities for emerging technologies application, through a lemma of “digital transformation” (DT), validating and expanding market intelligence background towards new dynamism and application in Healthcare contexts.

The Matrix of Complexity Associated With the Process of Social Intervention With Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

This chapter discusses the standardization of instruments and typologies in social work assessment and introduces, from a multidimensional perspective, a new standardized instrument evaluating the level of complexity associated with the social intervention process in a sample of chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. The authors evaluated the matrix's metric properties by internal consistency and defined a rating index through the best cutoff points, using receiver operator curve and Youden Index. Matrix construction and validation used focus groups of experts in blinded classification of 100 CKD patients and indicator weighting. The matrix shows good internal consistency and reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .742). Cutoff points indicate three levels of complexity classification. The matrix is a good instrument to identify the complexity associated with the social intervention process in the area of Nephrology, and is a relevant contribution to the social information management of social workers, the health teams and the administration of health units.

Digital Professionalism

The widespread use of digital technology allows for a number of transformations in the organization of work which renders the importance of professional and expert knowledge more open to challenges. The digital age is impacting and changing many aspects of professional development, therefore must be examined in its effects on reshaping healthcare professions and its implications on professional autonomy and discretionary judgment. To achieve this goal, advantages and disadvantages will be highlighted about the usage of electronic health record software to the healthcare professional's autonomy and discretionary power. The increased use of digital technologies is deeply affecting most professional occupations, transforming their identities, structures, and practices. In recognizing the challenges and opportunities to professional work of the digital transformation is underlined the importance of trying to understand how to remain professional in different digital environments and how to work in contexts with ambient surveillance.