An Intelligent Web-Based Healthcare System: The Case of DYMOS

Abstract

Today’s information age is accelerating at quantum speed. Advances, such as the Internet and high-speed networks, have propelled the never-ending quest for information. In this regard, eHealth services is a continuously growing sector, driving the need for advances in the dynamic working environment of different medical actors promoting the effective collaboration within the given contextual and technological constraints. Henceforth, this chapter defines and classifies the various virtual communities in the eHealth sector, analyses existing related approaches and identifies current problems, stressing emphasis on the notion of workflow management within the multi/cross-organizational environment. It further proposes an eHealth system, DYMOS, which has been based on a suggested extended collaboration model, with features that tend to tackle the identified weaknesses. Finally, it presents a positive evaluation of the system’s efficiency and effectiveness with the implementation of an experimentation phase which has used trials in a real hospital environment.