- Professor Ricardo João Cruz-Correia is an Auxiliary Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto (FMUP... moreProfessor Ricardo João Cruz-Correia is an Auxiliary Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of University of Porto (FMUP). In 1996 achieved the degree of Computer Science at the Faculty of Sciences (FCUP), in 1998 achieved the Master Degree on Computer Science also at FCUP, and achieved the PhD at FMUP in 2008 on the Integration of Hospital Information Systems. He has collaborated on the implementation of several health information systems. Member of several health informatics standard organizations (HL7, openEHR, IPQ CT199, ABNT), and associations (APIM. e-MAIS). He has lectured several disciplines on Medical Informatics of pre and pos graduation courses, and is currently supervising several master degrees on Health Informatics. Co-founder of 3 UP spin-off companies (www.hltsys.pt, www.virtualcare.pt, www.is4health.com) and a professional school (www.ciencia-letras.pt).edit
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Smart cities, leveraging IoT technologies, are revolutionizing the quality of life for citizens. However, the massive data generated in these cities also poses significant privacy risks, particularly in de-anonymization and... more
Smart cities, leveraging IoT technologies, are revolutionizing the quality of life for citizens. However, the massive data generated in these cities also poses significant privacy risks, particularly in de-anonymization and re-identification. This survey focuses on the privacy concerns and commonly used techniques for data protection in smart cities, specifically addressing geolocation data and video surveillance. We categorize the attacks into linking, predictive and inference, and side-channel attacks. Furthermore, we examine the most widely employed de-identification and anonymization techniques, highlighting privacy-preserving techniques and anonymization tools; while these methods can reduce the privacy risks, they are not enough to address all the challenges. In addition, we argue that de-identification must involve properties such as unlikability, selective disclosure and self-sovereignty. This paper concludes by outlining future research challenges in achieving complete de-i...
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Eating disorders (ED) are described as a broad spectrum of eating-related issues, which include dysfunctional behavior related to dissatisfaction with body shape or size, as well as inadequate eating behavior such as purgative practices,... more
Eating disorders (ED) are described as a broad spectrum of eating-related issues, which include dysfunctional behavior related to dissatisfaction with body shape or size, as well as inadequate eating behavior such as purgative practices, binge eating and dietary restrictions for weight loss and control purposes. ED assessments are carried out through questionnaires/scales focused on ED symptoms. Meanwhile, electronic health records (EHR) should help health professionals to make decisions by providing data to support individual decisions. Aim: The current article aims to present a solution for the integration of ED tools into EHR via openEHR-archetypes and to understand the challenges involving in this process. Methods: This is an exploratory study. The literature review focused on finding the main scales applied to ED screening, which were organized and structured into openEHR-archetypes. The Ocean Archetype Editor software was used as openEHR modeling tool. Results: Three new open-EHR archetypes (Eating attitudes test - EAT-40 and its short-version - EAT-26; and Bulimic Investigatory Test, Edinburgh - BITE) were developed in the initial stage of the current study. According to a review conducted by a member of our research group, these archetypes were described as the most often adopted tests by researchers. Conclusions: The quality of medical information is essential to help improving data standards and to assure interoperability. The openEHR-archetypes developed in the current study will be essential to help to improve clinical practices and, mainly, clinical research.
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<b>Copyright information:</b>Taken from "Reviewing the integration of patient data: how systems are evolving in practice to meet patient needs"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/7/14BMC Medical Informatics and... more
<b>Copyright information:</b>Taken from "Reviewing the integration of patient data: how systems are evolving in practice to meet patient needs"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/7/14BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2007;7():14-14.Published online 12 Jun 2007PMCID:PMC1919361.
Background COVID19 pandemic has shown the importance of data to manage health crises. Therefore, countries that were more mature regarding using Information Systems (IS) were better prepared to respond to their population needs.... more
Background COVID19 pandemic has shown the importance of data to manage health crises. Therefore, countries that were more mature regarding using Information Systems (IS) were better prepared to respond to their population needs. Unfortunately, in Angola, such Health Information Systems (HIS) maturity is very low, so new Health Information Technology (HIT) projects must change this scenario. Objective Describe the impact of COVID19 on a new health information technology project called "ObsCare Lubango" to collect essential data on deliveries and births at the Maternity Hospital in Lubango-Angola. Methods Retrieve data from the notes, communication events of the project management. Also, the collected data regarding obstetrics (pregnancies and childbirth) was from Jan 2019 to Apr 2021 (14 months before COVID19 and 14 months after the beginning of COVID19). The data analyzed were collected from the utilization audit trail that stores the sessions and clicks in the application...
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Access control to Electronic Patient Records (EPR) may greatly depend on users’ objectives and needs. The purpose of this study is to assess the opinions of medical doctors within a university hospital towards access control to an EPR. We... more
Access control to Electronic Patient Records (EPR) may greatly depend on users’ objectives and needs. The purpose of this study is to assess the opinions of medical doctors within a university hospital towards access control to an EPR. We selected a randomized sample of 58 doctors from a university hospital and 45 structured interviews were applied. 42 respondents (93%) agree with the existence of access control levels to patient information according to healthcare professionals’ category and 31 (69%) think that more sensitive information (e.g. HIV) should be accessed only by doctors that treat those patients. As 24 doctors (53%) feel that there is no need for them to see all information about all the patients, 41 (91%) think that nurses should not be able to do it also. Further, 31 doctors (69%) believe that patients themselves should not access their full medical record. These results show that it is very hard to get to a consensual policy regarding access control to EPR by its re...
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INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Electronic health records (EHRs) are important tools to facilitate communication between care providers and to improve clinical research. In obstetrics they became essential. The ObsCare software was created to... more
INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Electronic health records (EHRs) are important tools to facilitate communication between care providers and to improve clinical research. In obstetrics they became essential. The ObsCare software was created to answer to the need for an EHR with specific obstetric features. The present study aimed to develop openEHR-archetypes capable of representing an ObsCare® EHR form and to create an openEHR-template using the developed archetypes. METHODS The study was performed in four phases: 1) selection and description of the ObsCare form; 2) Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM) analysis; 3) modelling of the archetypes; 4) creation and testing of the template. RESULTS One openEHR-archetype - Newborn summary - was modelled to assemble the following three clinical concepts that were not represented in CKM: hours of life, "Examination of newborn movements" and "Examination of reflexes". Finally, an openEHR-template was built and automatically converted int...
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We aimed to identify relevant indicators for end-users in integration engines for healthcare systems. METHODS The study was performed in two steps, including interviews and the identification of additional indicators from the literature.... more
We aimed to identify relevant indicators for end-users in integration engines for healthcare systems. METHODS The study was performed in two steps, including interviews and the identification of additional indicators from the literature. RESULTS 10 interviews were performed and 90 indicators identified. DISCUSSION Several of the indicators are difficult to calculate, nevertheless, they have the potential to improve data quality and processes in healthcare institutions and should be further explored in future studies.
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Background Some previous studies have reported that hospital medical assistance in Angola lacks efficiency. There is no production of information on health financing or even health spending that could help monitor equity. Hospital... more
Background Some previous studies have reported that hospital medical assistance in Angola lacks efficiency. There is no production of information on health financing or even health spending that could help monitor equity. Hospital information systems (HIS) could be relevant tools to inform hospital managers, supporting better management decisions in healthcare and, consequently, increasing efficiency. Nonetheless, the effective use of these systems by hospital managers to support decision-making in Angola is unknown. This study aimed to analyze the use of HIS as a tool to support decision-making by hospital managers in Huila, Angola. Methods This is a descriptive–cross-sectional study that was inducted between July and September 2017 in seven hospitals in Huila Province, Angola, specifically in Lubango and Matala cities. Each hospital board included four to six managers (e.g., general, clinical, administrative, nursing, diagnostic and therapeutic, and teaching and training managers)...
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Background The traditional concept of personalized nutrition is based on adapting diets according to individual needs and preferences. Discussions about personalized nutrition have been on since the Human Genome Project, which has... more
Background The traditional concept of personalized nutrition is based on adapting diets according to individual needs and preferences. Discussions about personalized nutrition have been on since the Human Genome Project, which has sequenced the human genome. Thenceforth, topics such as nutrigenomics have been assessed to help in better understanding the genetic variation influence on the dietary response and association between nutrients and gene expression. Hence, some challenges impaired the understanding about the nowadays important clinical data and about clinical data assumed to be important in the future. Objective Finding the main clinical statements in the personalized nutrition field (nutrigenomics) to create the future-proof health information system to the openEHR server based on archetypes, as well as a specific nutrigenomic template. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted in electronic databases such as PubMed. The aim of this systemic review was to list t...
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Research Interests: Program Evaluation, Computer Science, Medical Informatics, Medicine, Hospitals, and 15 moreMedical errors, Portugal, Library and Information Studies, Humans, Hospital administration, Audit, Pubmed, Data Collection, Computer User Interface Design, Information Storage and Retrieval, Public health systems and services research, Traceability, Reproducibility of Results, Medical Audit, and quality assurance in health care
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The wider use of healthcare information systems and the easier integration and sharing of patient clinical information can facilitate a wider access to medical records. The main goal of this paper is to perform a systematic review to... more
The wider use of healthcare information systems and the easier integration and sharing of patient clinical information can facilitate a wider access to medical records. The main goal of this paper is to perform a systematic review to analyze published work that studied the impact of facilitating…
Research Interests: Computer Science, Access To Information, Health Studies, Medicine, Library and Information Studies, and 14 moreHumans, Pubmed, Confidentiality, Medline, Systematic review, Scopus, Public health systems and services research, Confusion, Doctor patient relationship, Patient Participation, Medical Records, Medical Record, Electronic Medical Record, and Healthcare Information System Market
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Research Interests: Information Systems, Pathology, Computer Science, Visualization, Production, and 8 moreSurvival Analysis, Logistic Regression, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, Data Visualization, Regression Analysis, Predictive models, Statistical Distributions, and Information Technology Infrastructure
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Research Interests: Information Systems, Computer Science, Primary Care, Decision Making, Health Informatics, and 15 moreMedicine, Middleware, Data Integration, Interoperability, Humans, Data Sharing, Regional scale, Geomatic Engineering, Clinical Sciences, Computer User Interface Design, Medical Image, Data Integrity, Patient Centered Care, Internet, and Information System
Abstract Auscultation is currently both a powerful screening tool, providing a cheap and quick initial assessment of a patient’s clinical condition, and a hard skill to master. Acquiring this skill is not only intrinsically difficult but... more
Abstract Auscultation is currently both a powerful screening tool, providing a cheap and quick initial assessment of a patient’s clinical condition, and a hard skill to master. Acquiring this skill is not only intrinsically difficult but our teaching methods are inadequate due to a variety of practical issues. In this chapter, we will discuss the difficulties of the art of auscultation, how we currently teach this skill and describe a novel simulation technology, IS4Learning, that can be used in three different teaching settings enabling us to train and evaluate students in the art of auscultation.
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BACKGROUND A cancer registry (CR) is typically a standardized tool to produce population-based data on cancer incidence and survival. Cancer registries aim to retrieve and store information on all cancer cases occurring in a defined... more
BACKGROUND A cancer registry (CR) is typically a standardized tool to produce population-based data on cancer incidence and survival. Cancer registries aim to retrieve and store information on all cancer cases occurring in a defined population. The main sources of data on cancer cases usually include treatment, diagnostic facilities (oncology centres or hospital departments, pathology laboratories, or imaging facilities etc.) and the official territorial death registry. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to assess the actual solutions for cancer registries and determine and understand its main requirements. METHODS To achieve this goal, we have made a systematic review based on a comprehensive qualitative research, following the PRISMA statement framework. Four distinct databases were searched: Medline; ISI Web of Knowledge, IEEE Xplore and Scopus with the query “cancer registries” [All Fields] AND computerized [All Fields]. The inclusion criteria include references from five key-concepts: data collection; standards; quality control, data protection and data exploration. For the process final review, we have involved the participation of three medical informatics professionals. RESULTS From a total of 54 articles, 10 accomplished the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Cancer registries systems had in general problems related to the lack of a fully automatic integration of data from different sources, difficulty in automatize data quality control routines and a lack of harmonization in terms of standards (both communication and terminologies standards). Many tasks are still performed manually implying an extra effort from the human resources team that results in a substantial delay in survival and incidence reports production and more data inconsistencies and errors. CONCLUSIONS It is essential to automatize the data linking integration between different healthcare institutions. However, it is important to consider a balance between the preservation of data integrity and the patient’s privacy, whilst enabling meaningful state of the art continuous research to improve people’s health and the general quality of care. Healthcare institutions must abide and comply with the changes imposed by the much more stringent data privacy protection regulations imposed by the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), resulting on new rigorous compliance obligations on privacy and security that all CRs across Europe must be ready to comply.
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A Virtual Electronic Patient Record (VEPR) has been deployed at Hospital de S. João since 2005, that retrieves and integrates clinical record data. One of its modules is a Multi-Agent system for Integration of Data (MAID) that provides... more
A Virtual Electronic Patient Record (VEPR) has been deployed at Hospital de S. João since 2005, that retrieves and integrates clinical record data. One of its modules is a Multi-Agent system for Integration of Data (MAID) that provides automatic report retrieval from departmental systems. The currently deployed MAID uses a static interval for the retrieval of report references. As each
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ABSTRACT In healthcare there are perceived benefits in the integration of multi-institutional patient data. The use of multiagent systems may facilitate the discovery and retrieval of patient data from the multiple health institutions... more
ABSTRACT In healthcare there are perceived benefits in the integration of multi-institutional patient data. The use of multiagent systems may facilitate the discovery and retrieval of patient data from the multiple health institutions that the patient has come into contact with. The main objective of this work is to define an architecture that allows agents to seek and collect health data from an HL7 based Information Systems. A key aspect in the development of the system for the retrieval of healthcare data is the integration with local systems. This paper describes a way to integrate openEHR queries with HL7 messages to query a local repository of patient information at an external institution, enabling a multi-agent system designed for the retrieval of multi-institutional data to search for and retrieve patient data essential for the process of care delivery. With health open standards and technologies a model was developed in order to enhance the discovery and retrieval of patient health data, this model have harmonized health data source input (HL7) which is modeled through metabolic templates with the same structure of an archetype template, providing openEHR compositions. Consequently building an openEHR repository with the modeled compositions allows the agents to use the Archetype Query Language for searching and retrieving the clinical data found in archetype-based EHRs.
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Personal Health Information (PHI) is collected and used by multiple health professionals and multiple information systems, and usually the patient does not know who accesses their information, when and for what purposes. According to USA... more
Personal Health Information (PHI) is collected and used by multiple health professionals and multiple information systems, and usually the patient does not know who accesses their information, when and for what purposes. According to USA (HIPAA) and EU legislation (GDPR) a patient has the right to see his/her clinical information and to know who has access to it, however, the process of obtaining all this related information is still time consuming and complicated. We aim to investigate the opinion of university students regarding the existence of a tool to verify whose healthcare providers access their health information. A web-based questionnaire was designed, 33404 university students were contacted and 589 answered it (1.8% response rate). 90.7% of participants recognize that a tool with those characteristics is important, and 71.5% of them agree to use that tool. In general, we can consider that although the vast majority of participants did not show great knowledge about available healthcare legislation (81%) and that about half of respondents do not know about the use of their data by other parties (52%), more than 90% consider important the existence of a tool to view who accesses their health information. We intend to continue research on this topic and design an access control tool that can empower patients to better control their privacy and rights so to address the gaps existing in the area.
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The proliferation of electronic health (e-Health) initiatives in Brazil over the last 2 decades has resulted in a considerable fragmentation within health information technology (IT), with a strong political interference. The problem... more
The proliferation of electronic health (e-Health) initiatives in Brazil over the last 2 decades has resulted in a considerable fragmentation within health information technology (IT), with a strong political interference. The problem regarding this issue became twofold: 1) there are considerable flaws regarding interoperability and security involving patient data; and 2) it is difficult even for an experienced company to enter the Brazilian health IT market. In this article, the authors aim to assess the current state of IT interoperability and security in hospitals in Brazil and evaluate the best business strategy for an IT company to enter this difficult but very promising health IT market. A face-to-face questionnaire was conducted among 11 hospital units to assess their current status regarding IT interoperability and security aspects. Global Brazilian socio-economic data was also collected, and helped to not only identify areas of investment regarding health IT security and int...
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BACKGROUND Concerns about privacy and personal data protection resulted in reforms of the existing legislation in the European Union (EU). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aims to reform the existing directive on the topic of... more
BACKGROUND Concerns about privacy and personal data protection resulted in reforms of the existing legislation in the European Union (EU). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aims to reform the existing directive on the topic of personal data protection of EU citizens with a strong emphasis on more control of the citizens over their data and in the establishment of rules for the processing of personal data. OpenEHR is a standard that embodies many principles of interoperable and secure software for electronic health records (EHRs) and has been advocated as the best approach for the development of hospital information systems. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to understand to what extent the openEHR standard can help in the compliance of EHR systems to the GDPR requirements. METHODS A list of requirements for an EHR to support GDPR compliance and also a list of the openEHR design principles were made. The requirements were categorized and compared with the principles by experts o...
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BACKGROUND Birth plans are meant to be a declaration of the expectations and preferences of pregnant woman regarding childbirth. The My-Prenatal-Care application (app) engages pregnant women in an educational intervention for a healthy... more
BACKGROUND Birth plans are meant to be a declaration of the expectations and preferences of pregnant woman regarding childbirth. The My-Prenatal-Care application (app) engages pregnant women in an educational intervention for a healthy pregnancy. We hypothesized that users’ positive perception of an in-app birth plan is a relevant step for establishing direct communication between pregnant women and the healthcare team, based on an online report available at app. OBJECTIVE To evaluate pregnant women’s perception about the communicability of birth plan preparation using a mobile app. METHODS This was an observational, exploratory, and descriptive study. The methodology was user-centered, and both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. The tools of the Communicability Evaluation Method were applied. Eleven pregnant women evaluated their experience of using a birth plan prototype interface. The evaluation was performed in a controlled environment, with authorized video ...
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Research Interests: Medicine and auscultation
Para a definição de condutas nutricionais é fundamental que o profissional faça a avaliação do estado nutricional seja para clientes/pacientes saudáveis ou doentes. Ou seja, sua importância é vital tanto para o meio clínico quanto para o... more
Para a definição de condutas nutricionais é fundamental que o profissional faça a avaliação do estado nutricional seja para clientes/pacientes saudáveis ou doentes. Ou seja, sua importância é vital tanto para o meio clínico quanto para o epidemiológico, no que se refere à avaliação bioquímica e antropométrica e do consumo alimentar de indivíduos ou populações. Este trabalho permitiu desenvolver o sistema de avaliação do estado nutricional (NutriMobile) voltado para dispositivos móveis com sistema operacional Android. Para isto, aborda as seguintes etapas da avaliação nutricional: Antropometria, Exames Bioquímicos, Avaliação Dietética, Cálculos Energéticos, Anamnese e Dieta. O NutriMobile é um sistema embarcado que tem como objetivo deixar mais rápida e mais confiável a avaliação nutricional de pacientes hospitalizados.