Completed notes of the course Part 1 Prof V

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1 E-HEALTH METHODS AND APPLICATIONS PARTE FERRANTE 2 1. OVERVIEW OF E-HEALTH DATA THE ROLE OF DATA IN HEALTHCARE Overview of health data. Data in e heal th play a central role, without them no healthcare process is possible. Gathering data and interpreti ng their meaning are central to the health care process. Data are crucial to the process of deci sion mak ing :  Basis for categorizing the problem s a patient may have or for identi fying subgroup s within a population of patients  Help a physician to decide what additi onal information is needed and what actio ns should be taken to gain a greater understanding of patient’s problem or to treat most effec tivel y the problem that has been diagnosed. DATA FLOW IN SPECIALIZED HEALTHCARE Role of data is inside gather , access and, interpret data. Accessing means that whatever person that has to make decisions, should have easy access to data. Every little detail has a meaning in specific circumstances. Same data could interpretate very different contests. The very first process was the decision making process : pathol ogy of patients , classify in subgroups the situation. We should have in mind that we have to categorize patient identifying subgroups, and the other steps is help. We should need to acquire together additional data to make better decisions. Trade off, more data, more costs, and at the end the physician should take responsability of the choice.  Modern medicine is highly spec iali zed  The achievement of high quality healthcare may imply data flow among physi cian / providers  The issue is more relevant for the management of chronic diseases  These latter also imply higher costs AN EXAMPLE : ONCOLOGY Oncologi cal treatments require the cooperation of differen t medi cal spec ialti es:  Primary care…