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2017

Quintana, Yuri, and Charles Safran. 2017. “Global Health Informatics—An Overview”. In Global Health Informatics, 1st ed. New York, NY: Elsevier.
Publisher's Version

Global Health Informatics is a growing multidisciplinary field that combines research methods and applications of technology to improve healthcare systems and outcomes. Healthcare systems are facing many challenges including a growing population, the increasing complexity of care services, and limited resources to deliver services. These challenges will require more innovative approaches to scale healthcare services to larger numbers of people. This chapter outlines health informatics systems that have been developed to address these problems.

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Quintana, Yuri, Bradley Crotty, Darren Fahy, Alex Orfanos, Ruchira Jain, Eli Kaldany, Lewis Lipsitz, et al. 2017. “InfoSAGE: Use of Online Technologies for Communication and Elder Care”. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2017. Victoria, BC, Canada.

Aging creates new information and communication needs for families who are helping to coordinate care for frail parents. To identify how information and communication needs evolve with the aging process, we created a living laboratory of families, supported by an online private social network with tools for care coordination. Site registrants are invite to participate in a more in-depth survey-based longitudinal study. In year one, we assessed the feasibility of an online living laboratory. During this first year, 155 individuals registered on InfoSAGE, and 26% opted into the more in-depth longitudinal study. The survey response rate for those in the study was 61%. We present here a descriptive analysis of our early participants and networks, as well as barriers to participation that the study team encountered.
PubMed PMID: 28186055.

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Quintana, Yuri, and Oscar Garcia. 2017. Serious Games for Health: Mejora Tu Salud Jugando. 1st ed. Barcelona, Spain: Gedisa.
Publisher's Version

Los juegos aplicados en salud educan, entretienen y favorecen un mejor acceso de los usuarios al mundo sanitario en todas sus vertientes. Además, para este sector suponen una oportunidad sin precedentes en lo relativo a la motivación y el cambio de conducta de las personas en relación a sus enfermedades y dolencias. Estos juegos se diseñan para promover mejores resultados en la salud de los pacientes, para mejorar la formación de los profesionales implicados y promover la educación al servicio de la salud. La industria del juego aplicado en salud está valorada en miles de millones de euros y dispone de centenares de productos y prototipos que se han diseñado desde los ámbitos académico y comercial. Este libro analiza las mejoras en el sector y nos proporciona un marco de evaluación, diseño y estrategia que además quiere ser sostenible.

The book is available for ordering online at this web page and Amazon in Spain and USA.

Serious games for health educate, entertain and improve access to healthcare services. In addition, they represent an unprecedented opportunity to motivate and change people's behavior in relation to their illnesses and conditions. These games are designed to promote better health outcomes for patients, and also to improve the training of the professionals involved in promoting education and health services. The health gaming industry is valued at billions of euros and has hundreds of products and prototypes that have been designed from the academic and commercial fields. This book analyzes the improvements in the sector and provides us with an evaluation, design and strategy framework for sustainable systems

2016

Ayers, Katherine, Zhenghong Li, Yuri Quintana, Aubrey Van Kirk Villalobos, and James L. Klosky. 2016. “St. Jude Cancer Education for Children Program: The Impact of a Teacher-Led Intervention on Student Knowledge Gains”. Journal of Cancer Education, 1-6.
Publisher's Version

In 2006, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, Tennessee) began developing a school-based outreach program known as the St. Jude Cancer Education for Children Program (SJCECP). The aim of this program is to teach Memphis-area children about cells, cancer, and healthy habits that can prevent the development of cancer in adulthood. Initial plans for delivery of the program was for St. Jude staff to present the program at local schools. This plan for disseminating instruction was not feasible due to the limited availability of St. Jude staff. As a next step, during the 2012–2014 academic years, we conducted a study entitled SJCECP2, utilizing the SJCECP curriculum, with the objective of evaluating the impact of the educational intervention on knowledge acquisition and retention among fourth-grade students participating in a modified, teacher-led version of the program. Eighteen teachers and 426 students from 10 local schools in the greater Memphis area participated in the program evaluation. This study used a single-group, pre-test/post-test design to determine the impact of the SJCECP intervention on changes in knowledge scores among fourth-grade students. Testing was on cells, cancer, and healthy living. The mean scores increased from 6.45 to 8.12, 5.99 to 7.65, and 5.92 to 7.96 on cell, cancer, and health behaviors units, respectively (all p values <.001). Preliminary evidence suggests that the SJCECP2 intervention is a useful tool for teachers to improve student knowledge of knowledge of cells, cancer, and healthy living concepts at the fourth-grade level.

PubMed: 26939672

2015

Quintana, Yuri, and Charles Safran. 2015. “Global Challenges in People-Centered E-Health”. In MEDINFO 2015 Congress - MEDINFO 2015 Congress, 216th ed., Stud Health Technol Inform:977. ISO Press.
Publisher's Version

People-centered health care seeks an active role for the patient while empowering all other members of the health care team. By promoting greater patient responsibility and optimal usage, patient-centered health care leads to improved health outcomes, quality of life and optimal value for health care investment. This paper reviews some definitions of people-centered health care and various e-health approaches around the world used to implement this vision. The barriers and enablers to implementation this type of approach are explored. This paper provides a proposed research agenda for future implementations of people-centered e-health.

PubMed PMID: 26262279

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Varela, Ana M. Sanchez, Liza-Marie Johnson, Javier R. Kane, Kimberly A. Kasow, Yuri Quintana, April Coan, Ying Yuan, et al. 2015. “Ethical Decision Making About End-of-Life Care Issues by Pediatric Oncologists in Economically Diverse Settings”. J Pediatr Hematol Oncol 4: 257-63.
Publisher's Version

PURPOSE:

Pediatric cancer represents 1% to 4% of all cancers worldwide, with the majority of diagnoses in developing countries where mortality remains much higher than that in high-income countries. We sought to describe differences in ethical decision-making at the end of life among an international sample of pediatric oncologists practicing in countries with a variety of income levels and resource settings.

METHODS:

Pediatric oncologists subscribing to an educational international oncology Web site were invited to complete a 38-item web-based survey investigating ethical domains related to end-of-life care: level of care, fiduciary responsibility, decision making, and justice.

RESULTS:

Responses were received from 401 physicians in 83 countries, with most respondents practicing in middle-income or high-income countries. Significant differences in attitudes toward ethical issues existed across the national developmental indices.

CONCLUSIONS:

Further education on ethical principles is warranted in pediatric oncology, particularly among oncologists practicing in low-income or middle-income countries.

PubMed PMID: 25887639
Quintana, Yuri. 2015. “Challenges to Implementation of Global Translational Collaboration Platforms”. MOJ Proteom Bioinform. 2015;2(6):65. 2 (6): 65.

Translational Collaboration Platforms connect clinical, genomics, and patient-reported data for the advancement of biomedical research, providing an opportunity to speed up the translating of basic science findings into clinical applications and new medicines. These platforms bring together data from both clinical and research databases and provide opportunities for multi-disciplinary research. Recent years have seen a significant growth of these platforms and some global collaborations research networks have been established using these platforms. In this brief summary of these platforms, we examine the challenges in implementation for global international research collaborations and challenges for the sustainability of research networks.

Keywords: Translational Platforms, Collaboration, Global Health, Big Data, Genomics, Clinical Informatics, International Research
 

PubMed PMID: 26798845; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4717481.

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Quintana, Yuri, and Charles Safran. 2015. “ECare at a Distance: Opportunities and Challenges”. In Research on the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Brazilian Health Facilities - ICT in Health 2014, 168-77. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br),.
Publisher's Version
Delivering health care to a growing world population and to communities in underserved areas is a major global health challenge. Over the last few decades, many approaches have been developed under various frameworks such as telemedicine, telehealth, eHealth, and mhealth. This chapter reviews the evolution of these networks for coordination of patient care and elder care. We discuss the challenges in the design, implementation and evaluation of these systems, and outline some opportunities and challenges for future development.
 
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1125.2961
 
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2014

2013

Quintana, Yuri, Aman N. Patel, Federico G. Antillon, Raul C. Ribeiro, and Scott C. Howard. 2013. “POND4Kids: A Global Web-Based Database for Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Outcome Evaluation and Collaboration.”. Stud Health Technol Inform 183: 251-56.
Publisher's Version

The Pediatric Oncology Network Database, (www.pond4kids.org, POND), is a secure, web-based, multilingual pediatric hematology/oncology database created for use in countries with limited resources to meet various clinical data management needs including cancer registration, delivery of protocol-based care, outcome evaluation, and assessment of psychosocial support programs. Established as a part of the International Outreach Program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, POND serves as a tool for oncology units to store patient data for easy retrieval and analysis and to achieve uniform data collection to facilitate meaningful comparison of information among centers. Launched in 2003, POND now has 233 sites registered with over 1,000 users in 66 countries. However, adoption and usage of POND varies widely among sites. This paper reviews some of the challenges to developing a global collaborative clinical platform based on the experiences of developing POND. The paper also presents a case study of POND use in Guatemala, where the Guatemalan National Oncology Unit (UNOP) has developed extensive internal and external global collaborations using POND.

PMID:  23388293