Medical Informatics Interfacing Smart Devices and Clinical Research

Speaker:Prof. Thomas M. Deserno (Uniklinik RWTH)

Time and Date: 14:30- , Dec. 4, 2014

Place: Room 521, Physics Building, Handan Campus

 

 

Abstract

Smart devices combine battery-driven processing power with several options for sensing, visualizing, or transmitting of signal or image data. Smartphones, for instance, have already been broadly distributed and smart wearables are currently pushed on the marked by leading companies such as Google and Sony. In controlled clinical trials, signal- or image-based surrogates are substituting common endpoints, and the case report forms have been transformed from paper-based to electronic data capture (EDC) systems. Similarly in medical registers, photographs, for example, are taken to document the clinical situation of wounds and to capture additional recordings. Straightforwardly, we suggest mobile devices in support of medical research, integrating the sensing entities – which may also be connected externally to the smart phone using WiFi or NFR – into the data capture workflow and the cloud-based data repositories. When automatic image or signal analysis is performed directly on the device, using its build-in processors, diagnostic applications can be designed in both, online and offline modes. Assistant systems are obtained if such data-based classification systems are combined with a decision support that is suggesting actions to the user. Based on several examples of mobile health (mHealth) prototypes based on smartphones and smart wearables, the lack of interfaces and protocols for interconnectivity of smart devices and electronic data capture systems in clinical research is emphasized. Medical informatics, however, is providing knowledge and digital technology for mobile system integration satisfying the required data privacy and security issues. Hence in near future, mHealth applications will be well-established in clinical research, healthcare, and ambient assisted living.