Stories for a sustainable healthcare future: the perspectives of healthcare IoT technologies in surgical oncology.

The rapid spread and continuous development of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have profoundly impacted various aspects of daily life, including healthcare. The aim of this review was to highlight the necessity of adopting healthcare IoT technologies in surgical oncology clinical practice, remote home monitoring of cancer patients, and context awareness facilitation. In addition, we identified different categories of healthcare IoT technologies and the best practice examples of IoT technologies for breast cancer patients. Moreover, discussions were supported by the future opportunities of integrating IoT technologies in surgical oncology.

The measurement of Central Corneal Thickness.

We aimed to compare five different devices that measure Central Corneal Thickness. The Central Corneal Thickness (CCT) is an important parameter in ophthalmology. It is involved in the management of various eye conditions such as: glaucoma, keratoconus, contact lens wearing, corneal dystrophies, refractive surgery and keratoplasty. We measured the CCT using OCT, Topographer (TOPO), Ultrasonography Pachymeter (US), Specular Microscope (MS), and Non-contact Tonometer (TONO). In the analysis of the data collected from 59 patients we found the following mean values: US - 554.51 ± 29.849 µm, OCT - 548.73 ± 31.080 µm, TOPO - 553.76 ± 29.845 µm, MS - 564 ± 32.637 µm, and TONO - 538.9 ± 35.657 µm. Our results confirmed the strong correlation between techniques. Abbreviations: OCT = Optical Coherence Tomography, CCT = Central Corneal Thickness, TOPO = Topographer, US = Ultrasonography Pachymeter, MS = Specular Microscope, TONO = Non-contact Tonometer.

The complexity of physician-patient communication and its impact in non-medical fields. A surgical oncology approach.

Physician-patient communication is essential for determining high-quality healthcare, as this may influence patients' satisfaction with care, their understanding of medical information, coping skills specific to a disease, and raise treatment adherence. In the field of surgical oncology, most healthcare communication develops around the disease, treatment, and healthcare planning, overlooking psychological functioning and patients' well-being. To address this issue and avoid unmet patient needs, patient-centered communication requires specific skills designed to enable physicians to identify, acknowledge and respond to patients' thoughts and feelings over an extended period. The aim of this study was to investigate the integration of patient-physician communication in a non-medical system made up of patient-physician communication, perceived healthcare quality, and the image of a physician or a healthcare organization with a specific focus on surgical oncology. The sample comprised 157 breast cancer patients who reported highly satisfactory levels of perceived communication skills of physicians and the quality of services. Moreover, patients expressed their willingness to recommend these physicians to their family and friends, which further contributes to the positive image of physicians. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize the ongoing need for continuous attention to the communication skills of surgical oncologists, as each cancer patient's experience is unique and necessitates a personalized form of interaction.

Using eye-tracking technology in Neuromarketing.

The aim of this review is to highlight the importance and benefits of eye tracking in Neuromarketing, by analyzing research papers and articles from international databases such as Scopus, PubMed, Elsevier, Springer and Science Direct. After analyzing some of the most representative publications related to eye tracking in Neuromarketing, we have concluded that it can be considered one of the most important tools in determining the consumers' intent to buy medical products and services. In addition, with a mixture between standard Marketing Research methods and the eye-tracking technology, the researchers can get insight into unconscious factors that influence the consumers' choices and preferences. In conclusion, neuromarketing can prevent the waste of money spent on ineffective marketing campaigns.

Medical tourism in ophthalmology - review.

During the last decade, it seems that we have witnessed an upsurge in medical tourism and its documentation. Definitions often refer more to the terms themselves rather than to the medical tourists and frequently approach discussions using the principles of motivation, procedures, and tourism. The aim of this review was to investigate the existing literature on medical tourism in health care services, and in Ophthalmology, and to assess whether the principles of medical tourism are successfully applied in health care services, with a specific interest in Ophthalmology services.

A word-of-mouth perspective on consumers of family medicine services: a case study.

In an increasingly competitive health care market, family physicians have to elaborate and implement new strategies to attract potential patients. A useful and powerful method is word-of-mouth (WOM) because it shapes the consumers' attitudes and behaviours. Based on the recommendations of actual consumers, potential health care patients choose their family physicians. The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of WOM in family medicine and determine the key factors in recommending a certain family physician. The sample consisted of 338 patients under the supervision of a family physician, and the instrument for collecting data was a self-administered questionnaire. The findings revealed that the most important factors in spreading WOM are the communication skills and the expertise of the family physician. In addition, for patients between 27-33 years and 41-47 years, expertise is an absolute skill, whereas, for the health care consumers between 21 and 26 years, communication skills are essential in spreading WOM. Further, WOM becomes relevant in the family physician's activity as it may contribute to the delivery of value and in building sustainable physician-patient relationships.

Affiliate Marketing in ophthalmological services.

During the last decade, Internet has become an essential element in Marketing due to the benefits that come along with it, especially, in services that may promote and distribute products and services easily. In scientific literature, any activity that involved on online selling of a product or a service was classified as being e-commerce. In the last few years, since the pandemic started, many sellers had to find innovative distribution methods by implementing the principles of Affiliate Marketing (AM). Unfortunately, the implementation of AM principles in health care services has not gained too much attention because there are not so many specialists who would identify AM guidelines and take into consideration the full potential of this form of Marketing. The aim of this review was to investigate the existing literature on health care services and Affiliate Marketing and to assess whether the principles of AM might be successfully applied in health care services, with a specific interest in Ophthalmology products.

How could perioperative anxiety be addressed via surgical team communication approaches? Findings from a scoping review.

OBJECTIVES: Surgical patients and their families experience high rates of perioperative anxiety, which determine a negative impact on their surgery-related outcomes. Understanding what communicational aspects positively impact perioperative anxiety may help promote more efficient, patient-centered communication approaches which could address this issue. The aim of this scoping review was to synthesize published research on communication between surgical employees and adult patients and their relatives, and its role in managing perioperative anxiety. METHODS: A scoping review approach was used across four international databases to search for publications detailing communicational interventions and approaches employed in surgical contexts and their impact on surgical patients' and their caregivers' perioperative anxiety levels. Results were narratively synthesized. RESULTS: Twenty-two studies were included in this scoping review, which were grouped according to their communication intervention into one of five categories: technology-assisted interventions, interpersonal communication, educational programs, tools for facilitating exchange of information and theory-derived communication strategies. Records reported mixed results in terms of reducing perioperative anxiety. Facilitating and hindering factors in interpersonal communication in this context were further synthesized. CONCLUSION: A multitude of communicational approaches and their effect on anxiety have been investigated within surgical settings, with varying results. Existing evidence suggests that it is vital to address surgical patients' anxiety through personalized empathetic communication, tailored to an individual's case, preferences, and needs. Key aspects of patient-healthcare professional communication which may impact perioperative anxiety were identified and may be utilized in future trainings for communication skills among surgical teams.

The goldmine of patient satisfaction-interaction and communication in the context of infectious diseases.

This study aimed to investigate the patient satisfaction level in terms of communication and interaction with the physicians from a Romanian Infectious Disease hospital. The objectives of the study were related to the identification of the general level of satisfaction of the patients, the evaluation of the physicians' interaction type with their physicians, by using specific behavioral variables, such as respect and attention, as well as to determine the physician-patient communication quality. The data were collected with a self-administered questionnaire and were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 25. The sample comprised 82 patients who were hospitalized in the Department of Infectious Diseases. The quantitative variables were evaluated with the Shapiro-Wilk test and were described by the means and standard deviations, while the qualitative data were described by using the absolute values and percentages. The vast majority of patients were aged between 18-28 years old, were mostly females from urban areas, and 41.5% had university degrees. The outcomes of the study revealed that the general satisfaction of the patients, from a communication perspective, was reflected in the perceived and provided quality of information about the treatment. Although the vast majority of patients highly appreciated the interaction and the communication with their physicians, some individuals felt the need to read more information about their disease, especially from online sources, and they would have preferred their physicians to recommend trustful websites or health care platforms.

The perspective of medical staff on improving the integrated communication process - A pilot study.

The quality of working relationships among medical team members is influenced by communication, which has a significant impact on patient safety. Our study took place at the Dr. Nicolae Robanescu National Neurorehabilitation Center for Children, Bucharest, between October and December 2019 and included 44 participants that were grouped into three categories: physicians, physical therapists, and nurses (32 women and 12 men), aged between 23 and 53, all of whom were employed in the same unit. A total of 5 questions were used to select data on communication difficulties. The chi-square test used for statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between the professional categories participating in the research (p>0.05). We suggest increasing the group size in a future study to increase the statistical significance.

Trick or treat: Social Media's dissemination power of ophthalmologic information in the pandemic context.

Social Media in the COVID-19 pandemic context has become a real dissemination medium of ophthalmology information for both physicians and health care consumers. This trend of sharing information has revealed new and innovative interventions in Ophthalmology such as teleophthalmology on Social Media by providing synchronous and asynchronous consultations, education, and prevention solutions as well as scientific research findings. This paper is a review of the current challenges and limitations faced by ophthalmologists and health care consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social marketing and behavioral change.

Social marketing is an arranged cycle for impacting change. With its marketing and exploring segments, publicizing and customer advancement (counting situating, division, imaginative system, message plan and testing, media technique and planning, and successful following), social advertising can assume a focal part in themes like wellbeing and climate. Social marketing consolidates the best components of conventional ways to deal with social change in an incorporated arranging and activity structure and it utilizes progresses in correspondence innovation and advertising abilities. Moreover, it uses marketing methods to create conversation and advance data, perspectives, qualities, and practices. Thus, it adds to establishing an environment helpful for social and conduct change.

Marketing management practices in an emergency care department.

The aim of this case study was to identify effective marketing management strategies in the Emergency Care Department of a Romanian Emergency Hospital. An observational design study was conducted, and the instrument for collecting the data was the self-administered questionnaire. Out of 100 questionnaires completed, 74 proved to be valid. The statistical analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics software version 20 and Microsoft Office Excel 2013. Quantitative variables were described by means and standard deviations, whereas for the qualitative variables, frequencies and percentages were used. Most of the respondents were aged between 28 and 35 years (33.8%) and women (60.8%). The emergency room (ER) physicians identified the following factors as being important in becoming very good doctors: continuous specialization (81.1%), reading medical literature (78.4%), and getting involved in more complicated cases (78.4%). The ER physicians mentioned that most of their patients were satisfied with the medical information received (31.1%), properly understood the medical information received (18.9%), and 68.9% of the doctors considered that patients were showing them total respect. Although 40.5% of the ER physicians declared they were suffering from burnout, 25.7% felt satisfied and joyful in their daily activities. Today's context triggered the need to integrate the concept of consumer value-driven care in the health care system, especially in the ER departments, by implementing the principles of efficient marketing management practices.

10-Months Study Regarding the COVID-19 Spreading in Romanian Counties.

The paper analyzes the evolution of COVID-19 cases in Romanian counties over a period of 10 months, to highlight possible similarities that may contribute to a better understanding of the spreading pattern. The study uses the numbers of active cases for each county in Romania, as well as Bucharest and the whole country, reported daily by the Romanian Ministry of Health (https://datelazi.ro) between April 2nd, 2020 and January 25th, 2021. We compared the disease's evolution in Suceava county (the first outbreak of spread) with other counties in Romania in order to highlight the gaps between them. We calculated the cross-correlations between counties, interpreted as time series. The recorded lags varied between 1-15 days, the most counties having a lag of 6-7 days compared with Suceava. Therefore, on long term there are no important discrepancies between the regions in Romania regarding the evolution of the disease, which shows that the intervention efforts of the medical staff were uniform in efficiency. The existence of a lag of only one day between Suceava and the whole country shows that on long term, even in this county the situation is not very discrepant, belonging to the general evolution.

Truth of dare: The principles of storytelling in Ophthalmology services - review.

Storytelling has been long researched in literature and its benefits have been acknowledged. Recently, storytelling has widely been used in health care and has proved to be very helpful in health education. However, the impact of storytelling in several medical specialties has not been investigated. The aim of this paper was to highlight the benefits of using storytelling in Ophthalmology. As technology evolved, storytelling has been transformed into digital storytelling with more benefits for both health care consumers and health care providers. Apart from promoting a constant health education, digital storytelling offers the opportunity to raise the health care consumers' awareness on a specific ophthalmologic disease, and identify proper methods to prevent it, as well as identify the risk factors accordingly.

Flip a coin: Collaborative consumption or Sharing Economy in Ophthalmology services.

The sharing economy and collaborative consumption provide new opportunities in health care, especially to physicians, medical organizations, and consumers (patients). In health care services, there has been a long debate on the implementation and the characteristics of such concepts. Both terms may be very cost-effective, if applied accordingly. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether the concepts of sharing economy and collaborative consumption can be successfully used in health care services, with a specific interest in Ophthalmology services. The conclusions reached revealed that sharing economy in Ophthalmology services should be used from a consumer perspective, whereas the collaborative consumption concept should be used from a provider's perspective.

Enhancing the principles of experiential marketing in ophthalmology services.

Introduction. Consumers are getting more empowered, the process of empowerment transforming them into the partners of organizations or co-producers of services. Health care services, as well as ophthalmology services, have been a sensitive topic and raised several debates that focused on the principles of Experiential Marketing and hedonic experiences. Aim. The aim of this paper was to investigate the experiences of patients in a public ophthalmology organization by using the components of Experiential Marketing: sense, feel, think, act, and relate. Materials and methods. The case study was cross-sectional, and the sampling method was non-probabilistic, following a snowball technique. The sample was made up of 100 patients of the Clinical Emergency Eye Hospital in Bucharest. The instrument for data collection was a self-administered questionnaire. The statistical analysis was conducted in SPSS version 20 and frequencies or percentages were used for describing the qualitative data. Findings. Experiential Marketing principles may successfully be applied in public ophthalmology services if a special attention is given to the Feel and Relate components.

Going on a vision quest in the pandemic context: the linkage between a learning organization, internal marketing and burnout in Ophthalmology physicians.

The Romanian health care system faced a long line of chaotic reformations that proved to be less patient oriented and more expensive, leading to an increased level of burnout in physicians. The phenomenon of burnout occurs more and more often in the pandemic context, even in ophthalmology services. Among psychological and occupational factors that may cause burnout, there are also organizational factors that may decrease the burnout levels. The aim of this paper was to bring more insight into the prevention of burnout in ophthalmology physicians by applying strategies related to the organizational factors, namely, learning organization and internal marketing, in sustainable manner. We elaborated the conceptual framework on a thorough literature review and concluded that a learning organization has a positive impact on the implementation of internal marketing practices, internal marketing practices decrease the level of burnout, if appropriately applied, as well as, a learning organization has the power to decrease the level of burnout in ophthalmology physicians.

EMR in Eye Units.

There are some questions that have to be asked when considering if EMR is suitable for a National Health System: First the Viability, Reliability, and Integrity of the EMR. When thinking about EMR, it has to be compounded based on some standards, that can be taken from other Health Systems or own. Secondly, the proper type of Ophthalmic EMC System (Web based EMR/ Client Server EMR) should be taken into consideration. Another question that raises is if EMR can not only be specialized in Ophthalmology, but also Subspecialties such as Glaucoma, Retina and other. This offers a possibility of completing a Database that can be used for Studies and Audit and improve the Health System. Using EMR can also offer accurate data that can estimate the prevalence of some specific conditions and rare diseases.

Is Central Corneal Thickness a reliable independent factor in decision-making regarding the management of patients with high IOP?

As time passes, we discover that things that were supposedly considered to be well known are in fact not as they seemed. Maybe the process is like this because we try to simplify our daily practice, but by doing so, don't we tend to trespass the whole picture? However, what happens if these factors affect our decision-making? Clinicians should incorporate CCT into the thinking process and should not focus on "corrected IOPs", because, besides CCT, there are many factors of corneal biomechanics that affect IOP.