Road Centerline Data Accumulation for Rescue Workers Whose Expertise Is Not GIS.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to provide road centerline data for professionals of disaster medicine areas who are often beginners in GIS use. METHODS: Newly developed vector tile format data were converted into shapefile format data, then were organized as second level medical districts to which medical professionals are accustomed. RESULTS: Road centerline data in Japan is being prepared to release from Association for Promotion of Infrastructure Geospatial Information Distribution free of charge. CONCLUSION: Professionals of disaster medicine areas increased their accessibility of GIS. Logistic planning for evacuation activities and dispatching of rescue teams were improved.

Smart hospital infrastructure: geomagnetic in-hospital medical worker tracking.

PURPOSE: Location visualization is essential for locating people/objects, improving efficiency, and preventing accidents. In hospitals, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) Beacon, indoor messaging system, and similar methods have generally been used for tracking, with Wi-Fi and BLE being the most common. Recently, nurses are increasingly using mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, while shifting. The accuracy when using Wi-Fi or BLE may be affected by interference or multipath propagation. In this research, we evaluated the positioning accuracy of geomagnetic indoor positioning in hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We compared the position measurement accuracy of a geomagnetic method alone, Wi-Fi alone, BLE beacons alone, geomagnetic plus Wi-Fi, and geomagnetic plus BLE in a general inpatient ward, using a geomagnetic positioning algorithm by GiPStech. The existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was used, and 20 additional BLE beacons were installed. Our first experiment compared these methods' accuracy for 8 test routes, while the second experiment verified a combined geomagnetic/BLE beacon method using 3 routes based on actual daily activities. RESULTS: The experimental results demonstrated that the most accurate method was geomagnetic/BLE, followed by geomagnetic/Wi-Fi, and then geomagnetic alone. DISCUSSION: The geomagnetic method's positioning accuracy varied widely, but combining it with BLE beacons reduced the average position error to approximately 1.2 m, and the positioning accuracy could be improved further. We believe this could effectively target humans (patients) where errors of up to 3 m can generally be tolerated. CONCLUSION: In conjunction with BLE beacons, geomagnetic positioning could be sufficiently effective for many in-hospital localization tasks.

Use of in-Hospital Geomagnetic Fingerprinting Localization.

Recently, visualizing location of people and things in a hospital has become an issue particularly for improving work efficiency and incident prevention. Although radio frequency waves such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are commonly used in indoor positioning, they have several limitations owing to their physical characteristics. We proposed in-hospital hybrid positioning technique, involving a combination of radio waves and geomagnetic fingerprinting techniques. We compared accuracy of proposed technique with that of Wi-Fi- and BLE-based techniques.

[Local communication system between hospitals, clinics and nursing homes and their team approaches are essential in a consistent medical care for cancer patients].

Designated cancer care hospitals are responsible for constructing a local communication system between hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. Their team approaches are essential in a consistent medical care for cancer patients. Clinical pathway sheets shared by them will promote their collaboration and keep the consistency of medical care. Counseling and supporting section, palliative care unit and palliative care team in the designated cancer care hospital play an important role improving the quality of medical care for cancer patients.

[Team approach for treatment of patients with cancer, how to cooperate with staffs of other medical institutions--a recent trend in Japan].

For the team approach to patients with cancer both of consistency of medical services and patient's satisfaction are important. Japanese health care reform planning prescribes an establishment of a section which accepts patient's consultation and provides proper advice or information. Technology of the internet is also promising for team approaches with staffs of other medical institutions as well as the patient support section in the cancer centers.