مجله انفورماتیک سلامت و زیست پزشکی
سال نهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 32، تابستان 1401)

Hypothyroidism is a chronic disease in which patients become inattentive to their disease over time. Patients' management skills should be improved to minimize the risk of complications of this disease. This study aimed to provide a personal health record system for patients with hypothyroidism.

This developmental-applied research has been conducted in two phases. The first phase was the needs assessment, which was done with the participation of 10 endocrinologists. Then the prototype of the personal health record system was designed using ESP.NET in the Visual Studio software. In the second phase, system usability evaluation was performed by 52 patients. Data were analyzed using SPSS software, and the mean scores were classified into three levels as follows: "poor" (0-3), "moderate" (3.1-6), and "good" (6.1-9).

The findings of the first phase showed that data elements were recognized in six main groups, including demographic data, health history, general body examinations, laboratory results, treatment plan, and diagnostic information, and also 64 data elements approved by endocrinologists. Mean and standard deviation of usability evaluation according to users' point of view were reported in different indicators as follows: system usage (7.89±0.81), screen design (7.43±1.55), terminology and information (7.51±1.20), system learning capability (8.25±0.79) and overall system capabilities (8.14 ± 0.70). The usability of the system was evaluated as "good".

The output of this study was designing a personal health records system for hypothyroid patients. This system could be helpful for physicians and patients in terms of providing care plans for patients, collecting accurate information from patients, improving patient participation in treatment, enhancing life quality, and reducing costs.

Discharge summaries (DSs) are among the most important tools for transferring information from hospital physicians to other physicians and play an important role in the continuity of care. Low quality and lack of information are the main problems of DSs, and evaluation of their quality from the physicians' perspective in Iran has rarely been done. This study aimed to evaluate the DSs' quality of content and completeness.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on the DSs of Shafa Hospital in Kerman. A valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaire (α=0.97) was used. This questionnaire had three sections, including questions related to demographic information, evaluation of the quality of DSs (8 questions), and the degree of completeness of the DSs (8 questions).

Out of 110 physicians, 98 (89%) filled out questionnaires. Completeness, awareness, continuity of care, legibility, relevancy, length, consistency, organization, and physicians’ satisfaction were below the average (50%) throughout the hospital. The highest level of physicians' satisfaction with the quality of the content (79.27%) and completeness (77.73%) was attributed to electronic discharge summaries of the neurology department. Organization, legibility, and consistency, respectively, were identified as the best predictors of physicians' satisfaction with the quality of the DSs’ content.

Policymakers should increase the quality of DSs by creating instructions, holding documentation training courses, increasing the supervision of senior physicians on interns and residents, and finally developing electronic automated DSs.

The increase in stress and anxiety among students has a negative effect on their physical and mental health and can prevent their efficient academic performance. Self-care applications can help control and reduce students' anxiety and depression. The aim of this study was to determine the necessary requirements related to the design and development of a mobile-based self-care application to control and reduce stress and anxiety in students.

This research is a cross-sectional study that was conducted in 2022. To conduct this study, 38 students of Varastegan Institute for Medical Sciences (Razavi Khorasan province, Mashhad city) were included in the study based on the inclusion criteria and answered the questions of the questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS version 25.

Out of 91 informational-educational needs and capabilities, 67 items with a mean score of ≥3.75 were considered essential for application design. Information-educational needs and capabilities were categorized into eight axes: user profile, clinical records, lifestyle, disease management and control, sedation instructions, warnings and reminders, reporting and application capabilities.

Identifying and determining the requirements related to the design of an application based on a mobile phone is one of the basic principles of developing an application that by involving users and obtaining their opinions can have an important role in their continue use of these applications. Therefore, application designers can design and develop an organized mobile-based self-care application to control and manage students' stress and anxiety by using the information-educational needs and capabilities presented in the present study.

Since endometriosis is a chronic disease and requires long-term care, it can have a devastating effect on life quality. For this reason, it is necessary to increase awareness and educate women about endometriosis. In this regard, a mobile phone-based endometriosis training program was designed.

The present paper is a development-applied study and was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, to determine the educational content, after reviewing previous studies, the questions obtained were given to eleven gynecologists and reproductive health doctors to measure the necessity and effectiveness of each question. After being designed, the program was provided to 40 women of reproductive age, and the usability of the program was assessed. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22 software.

The required educational content of the application was presented in five groups and confirmed by specialists. The mean age of women who participated in this study was 32.35 ± 11.70 years. The average score of usability of the program was 8.34 out of 9 points which indicates a "good" level of satisfaction.

Educating women through new popular tools such as mobile phones can play an important role in raising awareness and influencing their treatment. Therefore, designing a mobile phone-based training program in the field of education and awareness for women at risk of endometriosis can be advantageous.

Hospital information system (HIS) as an integrated information system is used for daily operations, planning, care, and treatment of patients. Due to the existence of various and heterogeneous healthcare information systems, HIS encounters interoperability problems. In this regard, this study aimed to propose an integrated architecture for HIS based on the interoperability model.

This research is a strategic-applied study for achieving an integrated HIS architecture, focusing on clinical information systems (CIS). First, the requirements of clinical information systems were carried out through library studies, the review of the statistics office of the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education, and it was also reviewed and confirmed by information technology experts. Then, different interoperability frameworks and HIS architecture models were studied. Finally, the integrated HIS architecture model was proposed based on the interoperability model.

The integrated HIS architecture based on the interoperability model includes three architecture models as follows: references, software, and information. Reference architecture is proposed generally for the HIS and customized for CIS. For implementing various HISs, software architecture is proposed. And information architecture is used for storing, processing, and transmitting the information.

Considering the necessity of integration in the health system, this study creates the possibility of interoperability and integration between HIS systems by applying the guidelines of integration in the architecture, which leads to cost reduction, quality improvement, and timely decision-making.