Data Transfer Model for HIS and Developers Opinions in Turkey.

Hospital Information Systems (HIS) are used in every hospital in our country and these systems have been developed by different vendors. If there is a change in the HIS software used in a hospital for various reasons, all data must be transferred from the current HIS to the new HIS. Accurate, complete, consistent, reliable and rapid transfer of this transfer is important in order not to interrupt the health care provided by the hospital. The aim of this study is to introduce a data transfer model standart (VEM) between independent HISs and to explain the validations that are applied to enforce the model work correctly. In addition, we share the opinions from HIS vendors who develop VEM compatible systems. In the development process of the model, studies with data transfer experts from the HIS vendors in Turkey were performed. A validation software has been developed to check the compatibility of VEM with HIS software. In addition, a questionnaire was sent to HIS developers via e-mail and their opinions on VEM were received. Fourty six HIS developers voluntarily participated in the study, and 70% said they thought VEM helped with solving data transmission problems. As a result, it can be said that VEM has been successful in solving many problems encountered for data exchange in HIS changes in hospitals.

A Web-based Game for Teaching Facial Expressions to Schizophrenic Patients.

BACKGROUND: Recognizing facial expressions is an important social skill. In some psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, loss of this skill may complicate the patient's daily life. Prior research has shown that information technology may help to develop facial expression recognition skills through educational software and games. OBJECTIVES: To examine if a computer game designed for teaching facial expressions would improve facial expression recognition skills of patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: We developed a website composed of eight serious games. Thirty-two patients were given a pre-test composed of 21 facial expression photographs. Eighteen patients were in the study group while 14 were in the control group. Patients in the study group were asked to play the games on the website. After a period of one month, we performed a post-test for all patients. RESULTS: The median score of the correct answers was 17.5 in the control group whereas it was 16.5 in the study group (of 21) in pretest. The median post-test score was 18 in the control group (p=0.052) whereas it was 20 in the study group (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Computer games may be used for the purpose of educating people who have difficulty in recognizing facial expressions.

Analysis of social networks among physicians employed at a medical school.

Social network analysis is a well-known method for discovering the social complexities of relationships. In this paper, we present the results of its application in a healthcare environment, i.e. a state university hospital. The sociometric method was adopted to collect social network data. The analysis was performed using Pajek. The medical practice/academic and technological networks among physicians of a state university hospital were explored. Monomorphic and polymorphic opinion leaders (OLs) within the networks were identified using the in-degree measure. Cohesiveness were investigated based on network density and average degree. In addition, it was checked if the mentor system may present impact on the formation of social networks among physicians.

Evaluation of the usability of a serious game aiming to teach facial expressions to schizophrenic patients.

In some psychological disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, loss of facial expression recognition skill may complicate patient's daily life. Information technology may help to develop facial expression recognition skill by educational software and games. We designed and developed an interactive web-based educational program with which we performed a usability study before investigating its effectiveness on the schizophrenia patients' ability of emotion perception. The purpose of this study is to describe the usability evaluation for a web-based game set that has been designed to teach facial expressions to schizophrenic patients. The usability study was done at two steps; first, we applied heuristic evaluation and the violations were rated in a scale from most to least severe and the major problems were solved. In the second step, think-aloud method was used and the web site was assessed by five schizophrenic patients. Eight experts participated in the heuristic evaluation, in which a total of 60 violations were identified with a mean severity of 2.77 (range: 0-4). All of the major problems (severity over 2.5) were listed and the usability problems were solved by the development team. After solving the problems, five users with a diagnosis of schizophrenia used the web site with the same scenario. They reported to have experienced minor, but different problems. In conclusion, we suggest that a combination of heuristic evaluation and think-aloud method may be an effective and efficient way for usability evaluations for the serious games that have been designed for special patient groups.