A Prototype of the National EHR system for Cyprus.

The aim of this paper is to present Cyprus' initiative for the design and the implementation of the prototype of the integrated electronic health record at a national level that will establish the foundations of the country's broader eHealth ecosystem. The latter, requires an interdisciplinary approach and scientific collaboration among various fields, including medicine, information and communication technologies, management, and finance, among others. The objective, is to design the system architecture, specify the requirements in terms of clinical content as well as the hardware infrastructure, but also implement European and national legislation with respect to privacy and security that govern sensitive medical data manipulation. The present study summarizes the outcomes of the 1st phase of this initiative, which comprises of the healthcare as well as the administrative requirements, user stories, data-flows and associated functionality. Moreover, leveraging the HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard we highlight the concluded interoperability framework that allows genuine cross-system communication and defines third-party systems connectivity.Clinical Relevance- This work is strongly correlated with medicine since it describes the system requirements and the architecture of a national integrated electronic health records system.

Virtual Reality Applications for Neurological Disease: A Review.

Recent advancements in Virtual Reality (VR) immersive technologies provide new tools for the development of novel and promising applications for neurological rehabilitation. The purpose of this paper is to review the emerging VR applications developed for the evaluation and treatment of patients with neurological diseases. We start by discussing the impact of novel VR tasks that encourage and facilitate the patient's empowerment and involvement in the rehabilitation process. Then, a systematic review was carried out on six well-known electronic libraries using the terms: "Virtual Reality AND Neurorehabilitation," or "Head Mounted Display AND Neurorehabilitation." This review focused on fully-immersive VR systems for which 12 relevant studies published in the time span of the last five years (from 2014 to 2019) were identified. Overall, this review paper examined the use of VR in certain neurological conditions such as dementia, stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis. Most of the studies reveal positive results suggesting that VR is a feasible and effective tool in the treatment of neurological disorders. In addition, the finding of this systematic literature review suggested that low-cost, immersive VR technologies can prove to be effective for clinical rehabilitation in healthcare, and home-based setting with practical implications and uses. The development of VR technologies in recent years has resulted in more accessible and affordable solutions that can still provide promising results. Concluding, VR and interactive devices resulted in the development of holistic, portable, accessible, and usable systems for certain neurological disease interventions. It is expected that emerging VR technologies and tools will further facilitate the development of state of the art applications in the future, exerting a significant impact on the wellbeing of the patient.

Modeling the Effects of Perceptual Load: Saliency, Competitive Interactions, and Top-Down Biases.

A computational model of visual selective attention has been implemented to account for experimental findings on the Perceptual Load Theory (PLT) of attention. The model was designed based on existing neurophysiological findings on attentional processes with the objective to offer an explicit and biologically plausible formulation of PLT. Simulation results verified that the proposed model is capable of capturing the basic pattern of results that support the PLT as well as findings that are considered contradictory to the theory. Importantly, the model is able to reproduce the behavioral results from a dilution experiment, providing thus a way to reconcile PLT with the competing Dilution account. Overall, the model presents a novel account for explaining PLT effects on the basis of the low-level competitive interactions among neurons that represent visual input and the top-down signals that modulate neural activity. The implications of the model concerning the debate on the locus of selective attention as well as the origins of distractor interference in visual displays of varying load are discussed.

A patient centered electronic health: eHealth system development.

BACKGROUND: Medical practice and patient-doctor relationship will continue improving while technology is integrated in our everyday life. In recent years the term eHealth landmarked a new era with improved health provider's skills and knowledge, and increased patient participation in medical care activities. OBJECTIVE: To show why the design and implementation of a healthcare system needs to follow a specific philosophy dictated by the level of eHealth maturity of a country and its citizens. METHODS: Based on the maturity level, an adaptable framework for implementing an Electronic Health System at national level is derived, guided by the Patient Centered Philosophy as defined and introduced by the EU directives. Implementation prerequisites are analyzed together with guiding principles for identifying the maturity level of an organization or country. RESULTS: Cyprus being a small EU country, it can be used as pilot site for the whole Europe, was chosen for this study and its maturity level analysis is presented. Recommendations that determine general steps needed to prepare the ground for an adequate patient-centered national healthcare system are accompanied. CONCLUSION: The implementation of an integrated Electronic Health Record at National level, as a prerequisite for a patient-centered eHealth environment is evidently demonstrated.

eHealth Services for the European Reference Network on Rare Anaemias (eENERCA).

This paper presents an electronic registry system for the purposes of the eENERCA for rare congenital conditions that require lifelong follow up and treatment. The main objective of the eENERCA project focusses on the prevention of major rare anaemias (RAs) by facilitating the access, at a European level, to the best genetic counselling, diagnosis and clinical management of the patients with RA independently of their country of origin. This can be achieved by promoting an extension of the full Electronic Health Record system and specifically the electronic registries for RAs, across Europe for the purposes stated hence promoting service development for the benefit of patients. The proposed eRegistry will serve as an epidemiological tool to improve the management of patient services and ultimately improve patient care.

A patient centered electronic health system: an example for cyprus.

The design and implementation of a healthcare system needs to follow a specific philosophy regarding its operational structure and must be adapted gradually with one step at a time, depending on the level of maturity of a country on certain key issues. The main goal of this paper is to present an overall recommendations framework for implementing an Electronic Health System at national level, guided by the Patient Centered Philosophy. Certain prerequisites for implementing such systems are analyzed together with guiding principles for identifying the maturity level of an organization or country. The maturity level analysis for Cyprus is presented and is accompanied by some recommendations that determine the steps needed to prepare the ground for a complete patient centered national healthcare system.