Design and development of an interactive medical teleconsultation system over the World Wide Web

Acceptance of Remote Assistive Robots with and without Human-in-the-Loop for Healthcare Applications

Assistive social robots aim to facilitate outpatient-care including required safety critical measures. Accepting a robot to perform such measures, e.g., operate in close physical interaction for medical examinations, requires human trust towards the robot. Human-in-the-loop (HIL) applications where the robot is teleoperated by a human expert can help the person to accept even risky tasks performed by a robot. Therefore, the assistive humanoid GARMI was designed to enable HIL applications with varying autonomy. In this study, we use GARMI to understand which tasks in the framework of care may be accepted depending on human socio-demographics and user beliefs as well as the level of robot autonomy. Firstly, we seek to understand the general acceptance of GARMI using the Almere questionnaire. Secondly, we ask adults to rate their willingness to use several functionalities of GARMI. Lastly, we investigate the effect of the introduction method of GARMI on user acceptance. We assemble all relevant factors on acceptance to provide direction in the user-centered design process of assistive robots. The results of 166 participants show that alongside others, trust towards the robot and utilitarian variables such as perceived usefulness are the most influencing factors on the acceptance of GARMI and should be considered for the design of robotic semi-autonomous outpatient-services.

Collaborative simulation of soft-tissue deformation for virtual surgery applications

A key challenge of collaborative surgical simulation is to maintain a high level of state consistency among the distributed users under the limitation of network transmission capacity. In this paper, a framework integrating a scalable deformable model and an extensible communication protocol is proposed to meet this challenge. The parameters of the deformable model are obtained by making reference to the biomechanical properties of human soft tissues. Efficient collaboration is achieved by developing the communication protocol and implementing a series of network management approaches, including service management, computation policies, coupling control, token control and availability mechanism. A prototype has been developed by using the client-server network architecture. Experimental results demonstrate that this framework can support collaborative surgical simulation with acceptable network latencies.

A framework using cluster-based hybrid network architecture for collaborative virtual surgery

Research on collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) opens the opportunity for simulating the cooperative work in surgical operations. It is however a challenging task to implement a high performance collaborative surgical simulation system because of the difficulty in maintaining state consistency with minimum network latencies, especially when sophisticated deformable models and haptics are involved. In this paper, an integrated framework using cluster-based hybrid network architecture is proposed to support collaborative virtual surgery. Multicast transmission is employed to transmit updated information among participants in order to reduce network latencies, while system consistency is maintained by an administrative server. Reliable multicast is implemented using distributed message acknowledgment based on cluster cooperation and sliding window technique. The robustness of the framework is guaranteed by the failure detection chain which enables smooth transition when participants join and leave the collaboration, including normal and involuntary leaving. Communication overhead is further reduced by implementing a number of management approaches such as computational policies and collaborative mechanisms. The feasibility of the proposed framework is demonstrated by successfully extending an existing standalone orthopedic surgery trainer into a collaborative simulation system. A series of experiments have been conducted to evaluate the system performance. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework is capable of supporting collaborative surgical simulation.

A mobile network-based multimedia teleconference system for homecare services

Because most research and development for homecare services have focused on providing connections between home and service centers, the goal of the present work is to develop techniques and create realtime communications to connect service centers and homecare workers in mobile environments. A key technical issue for this research is how to overcome the limitation of bandwidth in mobile media and networks. An effort has been made to balance performance of communication and basic demands in telehealth through optimized system design and technical implementation. Implementations using third generation (3G) Freedom Of Mobile multimedia Access (FOMA) and Personal Handyphone System (PHS) were developed and evaluated. We conclude that the system we developed based on 3G FOMA provides sufficient and satisfactory functions for use in homecare services.

Telematics enabled virtual simulation system for radiation treatment planning

In this paper, GALENOS, a Telematics Enabled Virtual Simulation System for Radiation Treatment Planning (RTP) is described. The design architecture of GALENOS is in accordance with the dual aim of virtual simulation of RTP, i.e. to allow (a) delineation of target volume and critical organs, and (b) placement of irradiation fields. An important feature of GALENOS is the possibility for on-line tele-collaboration between health care professionals under a secure framework. The advantages of GALENOS include elimination of patient transfers between departments and health care institutions as well as availability of patient data at sites different than those of his/her physical presence.

Real-time collaborative environment for radiation treatment planning virtual simulation

A virtual simulation (VS) system is a software system that enables the delineation of anatomical structures, and the placement of irradiation fields for the purpose of radiation treatment planning, making use of patient's tomographic data, instead of the real patient. Since patient's tomographic data can be communicated between distinct radiotherapy departments, collaborative work on VS, connecting remote health care professionals, becomes feasible. In this paper, an environment enabling real-time collaboration on VS is presented. The environment architecture is based on both offline and online communication of data under a secure framework and can be directly integrated into the infrastructure of a radiotherapy department. The online collaboration relies on the simultaneous execution of all actions at both collaborating sites, and prerequisites the offline communication of the data set on which the collaboration will be performed. Analytical description of the custom-made layered service, which supports the offline communication is given, along with a detailed presentation of the secure management of messages, which enables the real-time collaboration. The technical evaluation of the environment highlights the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, since real-time secure collaboration on VS is achieved.

A model approach to sharing electronic medical records between and within the state hospitals in Turkey

It has always been a research interest to solve hospital management problems with systematic approach by using modern management tools. Almost all the Hospital Information System (HIS) software packages in Turkey keep track of local transactions in administrative activities and material flow. In state hospitals in Turkey, very little medical information is processed and most of the records are still kept manually and archived on papers. In this paper, a cost-effective, flexible and easy-to-use Hospital Information System model is proposed in order to give better diagnostic and treatment services. It is also demonstrated that this model makes it possible to exchange information between and within the hospitals over Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network. User needs are taken into consideration during model development and the benefits of model implementation to the hospital administration are stated. According to the model proposed in this paper, only a single health care record number (HCRN) is required for a patient to access all her/his medical records stored in different locations, from any state hospital in Turkey.