This brief analyzes experts' reviews of evidence about care models designed to improve outcomes and reduce costs for patients with complex needs. It finds that successful models have several common attributes: targeting patients likely to benefit from the intervention; comprehensively assessing patients' risks and needs; relying on evidence-based care planning and patient monitoring; promoting ...

(1) telemedicine and telecare (including disease management services, remote patient monitoring, teleconsultation, homecare); (2) clinical information systems (electronic health records and decision support); (3) integrated regional and national information networks and associated e-referrals; and (4) cardiology registries and other non-clinical systems used for education, public health, and he...

SEFRE (Shoulder-Elbow-Forearm Robotics Economic) rehabilitation system is presented in this paper. SEFRE Rehab System is composed of a robotic manipulator and an exoskeleton, so-called Forearm Supportive Mechanism (FSM). The controller of the system is developed as the Master PC consisting of five modules, that is, Intelligent Control (IC), Patient Communication (PC), Training with Game (TG), P...

The effectiveness of patient monitoring with serum tumor markers is improved when the patient's pretreatment baseline is established, regular serial testing is performed, and a clinically significant change of the marker is determined on the basis of objective criteria. Attention must be directed to (a) ensuring long-term assay precision, (b) timing specimen collection to avoid misinterpretatio...

This is the fourth edition of a well-known textbook focusing on the procedures and techniques that are fundamental to the practice of Intensive Care Medicine. New to this edition is a separate section describing in seven chapters the techniques of minimally invasive monitoring modalities. Every chapter has undergone a thorough update that provides a modern and ‘state of the art’ understanding i...

The range of data-gathering equipment for patient monitoring is rapidly increasing. Unfortunately there is little uniformity in the display of information. The array of monitors selected at the author's hospital includes a carbon dioxide (C02) analyser, non-invasive arterial pressure monitor and pulse oximeter. To find the five values for the end tidal CO2• systolic and diastolic blood pressure...

Monitoring of patient safety is an indispensable part of clinical trial planning and conduct. Proactive safety signal monitoring using blinded data in on-going clinical trials enables pharmaceutical sponsors to monitor patient safety closely while maintaining the study blind. Bayesian methods, by their nature of updating knowledge based on accumulating data and synthesis of prior knowledge, pro...

Self-criticism of physicians and patient participation are the pillars of modern medical ethics and medical programmes. Patients expect risk minimisation from physicians, mostly without realising how much they could actively do themselves in this respect. But what about the willingness of German people to take risks, how high is it really at present? Direct empirical data are not available, but...

The ability to correlate single-cell genetic information to cellular phenotypes will provide the kind of detailed insight into human physiology and disease pathways that is not possible to infer from bulk cell analysis. Microfluidic technologies are attractive for single-cell manipulation due to precise handling and low risk of contamination. Additionally, microfluidic single-cell techniques ca...

BACKGROUND The proper development and implementation of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics requires knowledge of the perceived requirements and barriers to their implementation. To determine the current requirements and perceived barriers to the introduction of POC diagnostics in the field of medical microbiology (MM)-POC a prospective online survey (TEMPOtest-QC) was established. METHODS AND RE...