Because of its established role in cancer care and its non-invasive nature imaging offers the potential to complement the findings of cancer biology. Over the past decade, a compelling body of literature has emerged suggesting a more pivotal role for imaging in the diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of diseases. These advances have facilitated the rise of an emerging practice known as Radiomics: the extraction and analysis of large numbers of quantitative features from medical images to improve disease characterization and prediction of outcome. It has been suggested that radiomics can contribute to biomarker discovery by detecting imaging traits that are complementary or interchangeable with other markers.
This thesis seeks further advancement of imaging biomarker discovery. This research unfolds over two aims: I) developing a comprehensive methodological pipeline for converting diagnostic imaging data into mineable sources of information, and II) investigating the utility of imaging data in clinical diagnostic applications. Four validation studies were conducted using the radiomics pipeline developed in aim I. These studies had the following goals: (1 distinguishing between benign and malignant head and neck lesions (2) differentiating benign and malignant breast cancers, (3) predicting the status of Human Papillomavirus in head and neck cancers, and (4) predicting neuropsychological performances as they relate to Alzheimer’s disease progression. The long-term objective of this thesis is to improve patient outcome and survival by facilitating incorporation of routine care imaging data into decision making processes.
system has faced a difficult situation because of the lack of medical resources and the unequal medical resource distribution between the BHs and BLHs. BH doctors are tremendously busy with both serious and minor illnesses while BLH medical providers are worried about a sufficient source of patients. This study aims to find the potential feasibility of a new service model in managing diabetes which will solve these medical problems. The study was conducted using an extensive literature review in addition to employing an interview and survey method to explore the perception and current situation in workload and income of medical providers from one BH and one BLH in China. Furthermore, this study tried to understand the acceptance of online medical technology in these medical provider groups. The results showed that doctors in the BH do not have the time needed to engage in extra work. This population is not satisfied with their work responsibilities and income structure. They want to engage in diagnosing and prescribing tasks, with respect to diabetes management. They would like to distribute the management work to BLH. On the other hand, medical providers in BLH have extra time and enthusiasm in doing extra work to improve their income. They are not satisfied with their workload and income, and want to change it. BLHs are willing to do the management work assisting the BH doctors. Additionally, the study showed that online medical technology requires a broader user education for medical providers from both big and BLHs. The conclusion can be summarized as design research advice for future service design in healthcare management. The proposed online medical service should meet different level medical providers' position and requirements regarding time, payment, and value. BH doctors are more suitable for diagnosing and prescribing and BLH medical providers are more suitable for follow-up service. This service should reflect the value of the BH doctors' professional service and the value of BLH medical providers' health management service. (discuss how design can improve this situation through app development)
in diagnosis and treatment assessment. The current clinical practice emphasizes on efficiency, but sacrifices accuracy (bias and precision). In the other hand, many computational algorithms focus on improving the accuracy, but are often time consuming and cumbersome to use. Not to mention that most of them lack validation studies on real clinical data. All of these hinder the translation of these advanced methods from benchside to bedside.
In this dissertation, I present a user interactive image application to rapidly extract accurate quantitative information of abnormalities (tumor/lesion) from multi-spectral medical images, such as measuring brain tumor volume from MRI. This is enabled by a GPU level set method, an intelligent algorithm to learn image features from user inputs, and a simple and intuitive graphical user interface with 2D/3D visualization. In addition, a comprehensive workflow is presented to validate image quantitative methods for clinical studies.
This application has been evaluated and validated in multiple cases, including quantifying healthy brain white matter volume from MRI and brain lesion volume from CT or MRI. The evaluation studies show that this application has been able to achieve comparable results to the state-of-the-art computer algorithms. More importantly, the retrospective validation study on measuring intracerebral hemorrhage volume from CT scans demonstrates that not only the measurement attributes are superior to the current practice method in terms of bias and precision but also it is achieved without a significant delay in acquisition time. In other words, it could be useful to the clinical trials and clinical practice, especially when intervention and prognostication rely upon accurate baseline lesion volume or upon detecting change in serial lesion volumetric measurements. Obviously, this application is useful to biomedical research areas which desire an accurate quantitative information of anatomies from medical images. In addition, the morphological information is retained also. This is useful to researches which require an accurate delineation of anatomic structures, such as surgery simulation and planning.
A literature review was conducted on T1D and the state-of-the-art in diabetes technology. To better understand self-management behaviors and guide the development of iDECIDE, several data sources were collected and analyzed: surveys, insulin pump paired with glucose monitoring, and self-tracking of exercise and alcohol. The analysis showed variability in compensation techniques for exercise and alcohol and that patients made unaided decisions, suggesting a need for better decision support.
The iDECIDE algorithm can make insulin and carbohydrate recommendations. Since there were no existing in-silico methods for assessing bolus calculators, like iDECIDE, I proposed a novel methodology to retrospectively compare insulin pump bolus calculators. Application of the methodology shows that iDECIDE outperformed the Medtronic insulin pump bolus calculator and could have improved glucose control.
This work makes contributions to diabetes technology researchers, clinicians and patients. The iDECIDE app provides patients easy access to a decision support tool that can improve glucose control. The study of behaviors from diabetes technology and self-report patient data can inform clinicians and the design of future technologies and bedside tools that integrate patient’s behaviors and perceptions. The comparison methodology provides a means for clinical informatics researchers to identify and retrospectively test promising insulin blousing algorithms using real-life data.
It is well known that the lack of care coordination in the healthcare system causes numerous problems including cost inefficiency and inconsistent care, specifically for complex pediatric and adult patients. Many pediatric patients have complex medical and social service needs which can be expensive for both the patient’s parents and the general healthcare system. Therefore, it is difficult for the healthcare system to deliver the highest quality care possible, due to the number of appointments that have to be scheduled (with some being out of state), the large volume of physical health records, and overall lack of time parents have to coordinate this care while also caring for themselves and other family members. It is integral to find a more efficient way to coordinate care for these patients, in order to improve overall care, cost efficiency, and outcomes. <br/>A number of stakeholders in Arizona came together to work on this problem over several years. They were funded through a PCORI Eugene Washington Engagement grant to investigators at ASU. This project, Take Action for Arizona's Children through Care Coordination: A Bridge to Action was developed in order to further develop a research agenda and build the network (PCOR). Regional conferences were conducted in Flagstaff, Yuma, Phoenix, and Tucson, as well as a final capstone conference held in Phoenix. At these conferences, frustrations, suggestions, and opinions regarding Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) and navigating the healthcare system were shared and testimonials were transcribed.<br/>This study focused on the capstone conference. The study design was a strategic design workshop; results of the design analysis were analyzed qualitatively using descriptive content analysis. Themes described parent’s common experiences navigating the system, impacts resulting from such experiences, and desires for the care coordination system. Quotes were then grouped into major themes and subthemes for the capstone conference. After these themes were determined, the overarching goals of stakeholders could be assessed, and implementation projects could be described.
COVID-19 has been challenging for nearly everyone in different ways. Healthcare organizations have had to quickly change policy, modify operations, reorganize facilities, hire, and train staff to overcome COVID-19 related challenges to be able to still provide care for patients, all while being mindful of the protection of their staff. Some healthcare organizations have responded particularly well, perhaps due to preparedness, planning, or exceptional leadership in times of crisis. To explore this, we invited seven healthcare system leaders from three different organizations in Arizona to talk about how they overcame challenges at the beginning of this pandemic with effective strategies and any leadership tips they had for the future. After the interviews were conducted, the interviews were transcribed, coded qualitatively, and separated into themes and categories to analyze their answers to the questions asked. The results and conclusions included strategies such as having open and honest communication, teamwork, rapidly developing communicating policies, and widely adopting new work practices like Telemedicine, Zoom, and working at home as crucial. This report is designed to assist in aiding and inspiring future or other leaders to be better prepared for solving various challenges with other emergencies that arise in the future.