Enabling Health and Healthcare through ICTPainos 1

For many people in both developing and developed countries universal healthcare is still not the norm. Socio-economic status and geographical restrictions have proved to be major barriers to accessible care. The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is growing rapidly internationally as the need to provide more efficient and cost-effective care becomes increasingly urgent. Improving the health of a nation begins with the individual and recent developments in genomics and mobile networked information technologies have regenerated interest in individualizing healthcare. Harnessing the diversity and ubiquity of available ICT may be one of the keys to enabling more accessible healthcare across both geographic and socio-economic divides. This book presents the proceedings of the 2013 Information Technology and Communication in Health (ITCH 2013) conference. This conference, entitled Available, Tailored and Closer, was held in Victoria, BC, Canada, in February 2013. The theme of the ITCH 2013 conference was realizing the enabling potential of information and communications technology worldwide. Papers in this book are arranged according to subject. Sections include: electronic health records; telecare, telemedicine and telelaboratory; public health informatics; clinical decision support systems; human/computer interaction; patient safety; and healthcare modeling, among others. This book will be of interest to all those involved in providing improved and cost-effective healthcare worldwide.