Conference Announcement
   
 

 
   
       
       
 
   
 
Authors of best contributions will be invited to submit extended papers to a special edition of ACM/Springer MONET Journal
  

Venue

The conference will be held in Hotel Grauer Baer that is located at Universitaetsstrasse 5-7 A-6020, Innsbruck, Austria.

 



Scope


Pervasive healthcare is emerging research discipline, focusing on the development and application of pervasive and ubiquitous computing technology for healthcare purposes. Pervasive healthcare seeks to accommodate the growing need for healthcare arising from a number of factors, including the increase in life-style and chronic diseases, the increased complexity of large healthcare organizations, providing healtcare services in rural and underserved areas worldwide, and enabling patients and relatives engage more closely in self-care and treatment.

Pervasive healthcare may be defined from two perspectives. First, it is the development and application of pervasive computing (or ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence) technologies for healthcare, health and wellness management. Second, it seeks to make healthcare available to anyone, anytime, and anywhere by removing locational, time and other restraints while increasing both the coverage and quality of healthcare.

The broad definition includes prevention, healthcare maintenance and checkups, short-term monitoring (or home healthcare monitoring), long-term monitoring (nursing home), personalized healthcare monitoring, incidence detection and management, and, emergency intervention, transportation and treatment. With increasing cost of healthcare services and an exponential increase in the number of seniors and retirees in developed countries have created several major challenges for policy makers, healthcare providers, hospitals, insurance companies and patients. Pervasive healthcare is considered a solution to many of these problems as well as a possible future of healthcare services.

To make the vision of pervasive healthcare a reality, there are many serious challenges that must be addressed including lack of comprehensive coverage of wireless and mobile networks, reliability of wireless infrastructure, general limitations of hand-held devices, medical usability of sensors and mobile devices, interference with other medical devices, privacy and security, payment and many management issues in pervasive healthcare. In the proposed conference, most of the challenges in pervasive healthcare can be covered in three main areas: mobile and wireless technologies for pervasive healthcare, medical aspects of pervasive healthcare, and management of pervasive healthcare.
Conference topics include, but are not limited to:
Technologies "situated on the patient"
  • Design and use of bio-sensors
  • Mobile devices for patient monitoring
  • Wireless and wear-able devices for pervasive healthcare
  • Patient monitoring in diverse environments (indoor, outdoor, hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living)
  • Continuous vs event-driven monitoring of patients
  • Using mobile devices for healthcare information storage, update, and transmission
  • Sensing of vital signs and transmission
  • Home monitoring for cardiac arrhythmias
  • Preventative care: Technologies to improve overall health of people one wouldn't normally call "patients"

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Technologies "situated in the environment"

  • The use of “environmental” technologies such as cameras, interfaces, and sensor networks
  • Data fusion in pervasive healthcare environment
  • Managing knowledge in pervasive healthcare
  • Content-based encoding of medical information
  • Forming ad hoc wireless networks for enhanced monitoring of patients
  • Networking support for pervasive healthcare (location tracking, routing, scalable architectures, dependability, and quality of access)
  • Managing healthcare emergency vehicles and routing
  • Network support for mobile telemedicine
  • Ubiquitous health care and monitoring at home
  • Ubiquitous medical network and appliances in homes or hospitals
  • Ubiquitous computing support for medical works in hospitals

 

Medical aspects of pervasive healthcare

  • Pervasive healthcare applications
  • Specific requirements of vital signs in pervasive healthcare environment
  • Diversity of patients and their specific requirements
  • Representation of medical information in pervasive healthcare environment (multimedia, resolution, processing and storage requirements)
  • Role of medical protocols in pervasive healthcare
  • Improved delivery of healthcare services
  • The usability of wireless-based solutions in healthcare
  • Physiological models for interpreting medical sensor data
  • Decision support algorithms for sensor analysis

Management of pervasive healthcare

  • Security and privacy in pervasive healthcare
  • Training of healthcare professional for pervasive healthcare
  • Managing the integration of wireless solutions in pervasive healthcare
  • Increasing coverage of healthcare services
  • Legal and regulatory issues in pervasive healthcare
  • Insurance payments and cost aspects
  • Role of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) in pervasive healthcare