Since twenty-first century, earthquakes, floods and other disasters occurred frequently in the world.These disasters caused a huge loss of life and property.How to evacuate the personnel to safety area quickly and orderly has become particularly important.In order to realize the rapid and safe evacuation before the disaster, this paper uses the Dijkstra algorithm, based on the objectoriented programming idea, using the combination of Visual Basic and MapX development model to design the software.The results are helpful to improve the emergency command ability of the government traffic management department, and help the decision-makers to make scientific and reasonable decision in the construction of evacuation system and the process of evacuation.

As in many countries, ageing and aged care in China is an important issue. There is a need for more research on the potential for technology to assist older people and their families, particularly given the disappointing levels of adoption in developed countries. Accordingly this paper aims to gain insight into the perceptions of older people and stakeholders in relation to issues of ageing and their interest in adoption of technology. Using convenience sampling, the authors surveyed 277 participants to understand peoples concerns concerning ageing and use of technologies. Results from this study provide a basis for discussion with stakeholders, particularly concerning ageing in China.

This chapter looks at how Lean Thinking can be adapted using a model derived from a case study of a large Traditional Chinese Hospital. After a restructuring in divisions and the implementation of the care programmers and clinical pathways, hospital management found that they had no tools to evaluate if these changes were resulting in a Lean Thinking approach on the work-floor. In agreement with hospital management, an existing tool of Business Process Re-engineering measurement was adopted and adapted to the specific context of health care. This chapter reports on how the quantitative model was changed and validated in order to come up with a useful instrument to measure the Lean Thinking of the employees in the hospital. The Hospital Lean Thinking (HLT) tool can be useful to measure the effects of changes that are assumed to lead to more Lean Thinking or even patient focus. In this way the pay-off of these investments can be made more tangible. The HLT tool offers hospitals a way to evaluate how they are evolving towards more Lean Thinking.

The Howareyou Project is a technological e-health platform that uses the Internet to connect various users; it was designed to deliver health care to the elderly. The Howareyou platform has three levels of implementation: diagnosis (mood monitoring, alert system, management reports), therapy (training in inducing positive moods, memory work), and entertainment (e-mail, chat, video, photo albums, music, friend forums, accessibility to the Internet). The objective of this work is to describe the psychological aspects of the platform and to present data obtained from four users. Results show that after using the system, the participants increased their positive emotions and decreased their negative ones; in addition, they obtained high levels of satisfaction and experienced little difficulty in using the system.

The EUChinaHealthCloud proposal contributes to the aims of the Research Infrastructures part of the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) by promoting cloud computing between the European and the China. The project, with a total number of 16 partners coordinated by ISTIC, started on July 1st 2012. It will disseminate the knowledge about the health cloud infrastructure, organize specific training events and support applications both within the scientific communities with an already long experience in the Computing Clouds (Population and Health, Bioinformatics and Biometrics, Computational Chemistry) and in the most recent ones (Aged care, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Clinical Medicine). Ultimately the EUChinaHealthCloud project will pave the way towards a common e-Infrastructure with the European and the China Clouds.

The expectations of adult children about their elderly parents regarding their care provision was surveyed. We found that the needs and expectations regarding their elderly parents included better information on entitlements of their parents, how to access relevant aged care services, the challenges of remotely dealing with dementia and depression of their parents, accessing medical and non-medical services and access to respite care. The aim was to identify needs that ICTs could potential to assist with. While the majority of respondents (67.2%) stated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the frequency of contact with their elderly parent(s), they also cited logistical/transport difficulties, lack of time and stress as potential barriers in being in regular contact with their parents. The responses also indicated a high level of interest in a service that could act as a case manager to assist the adult child in discharging their responsibilities, manage access to services and to monitor the well-being of the parent. There is a need for further research to explore how this might be accomplished, whether such a service was viable and what funding models could be applied.

This paper presents a synthetic frame in the area of information quality of e-government services, as a basis for the future construction of a relevant model and ontology. We include 16 different approaches concerning quality of service for public sector in general and e-government more specifically. The tool, eGIQ, draws on previous work in information quality to provide a rounded framework for assessing e-government offerings. The metrics and findings demonstrate not only the strengths and weaknesses of the sites, but also the different impressions of users in China

Aims: To review the impact of the services of LifeTec, a NFP (not-for-profit) state-wide community-funded provider of assessment, consultation and education services to support the adoption of smart home technologies, innovations for chronic disease prevention and solutions for independent living. Methodology: a review of service data collected by LifeTec and independently evaluated Findings: LifeTec and other similar ILCs (Independent Living Centres) in Australia and other countries, provide an assessment, consultation and education service that is critical for people with disabilities, the frail aged and others needing support. The services are accessed by consumers, their families, care provider organisations, clinicians and educators; the needs for these services are far greater than currently-funded capacity and there will be a need for greater capacity as baby-boomers move into the ages when needs for support will spiral upwards. Summary: The disability support and aged care sectors have not to date taken advantage of assistive and other relevant technologies; there is a massive unmet need for greater support and a significant level of issues that are not addressed. There will need to be a significant increase in funding of ILCs to meet both existing needs as well as to surge at appears to be changing and there is now significant investment in clinical systems and other systems to assist staff in providing care.

Environmental issues are rapidly emerging as one of the most important topics in strategic supplying decisions. Perusal of the literature has shown many models to support executives in the assessment of a company's environmental performance. Unfortunately, none of these identifies operating guidelines on how the systems should be adapted to support the deployment of different types of tobacco supply-chain strategies. The paper seeks to investigate, how system dynamics modeling can be supportive for tobacco supply-chain management. The behavior of the tobacco supply-chain management under study is analyzed through a simulation model based on the principles of the system dynamics methodology. The simulation model can be helpful as an experimental tool, which can be used to evaluate alternative long-term strategies ("what-if" analysis) using total supply chain profit as measure of strategy effectiveness. Validation and numerical experimentation further illustrate the applicability of the developed methodology, while providing additional intuitively sound insights.

Information and communications technology (ICT) has great potential for helping China achieve a greater level of 'consumer-centered' health services. The objectives of the research were to: (i) explore the availability of ICT infrastructure for health in China; and (ii) develop an approach for Consumer-centered eHealth (CeH) Technology adoption to solve those problems. The approach to evaluating the ICT infrastructure in China involved examining variables of school enrolment, per capita income and governance variables on the number of PCs, fixed telephones, mobile phone subscribers and Internet users. These were evaluated using a double-log regression model and cross-sectional data on various provinces in China. The analysis was based on 31 of the 34 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities that comprise Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. There were a number of main findings: (i) medical literacy and the number of Internet users had a statistically significant positive relationship with the number of PCs in each province; (ii) the combined school enrolment rate and per capita income had a statistically significant direct relationship with the number of fixed telephones and mobile phone subscribers; (iii) the combined school enrolment ratio and the number of fixed telephones had a statistically significant positive relationship with Internet usage; (iv) there were major inequalities in ICT connectivity between upper-middle, lower-middle and low income provinces in China; and (v) the information quality had statistically significant positive effect on all determinants. In order to improve access to health care, especially for remote rural areas and for the elderly in China, there is need to boost the availability and utilization of eHealth services. Each province will need to develop a road map in a strategic CeH plan that will, over time, enable its citizens to realize that vision.

As organizations have begun increasingly to communicate and interact with consumers via the wireless, so the data and information quality (DIQ) of their offerings has become a central issue since it ensures service usability and utility for each visitor and, in addition, improves server utilization. In this article, we present Quality-enable eHealth system architecture, eQualityHealth, by introducing a DIQ broker module between service clients and providers (servers). The functions of the DIQ broker module include assessing DIQ about servers, making selection decisions for clients, and negotiating with servers to get DIQ agreements. We study a data quality assurance algorithms used by DIQ brokers acting as the front-end of servers. The goal of this qualitative algorithms based on fuzzy computing is to measure the data quality and to facilitate user participation.

Today, information is a vital business asset. For institutional and individual processes that depend on information, the quality of information (IQ) is one of the key determinants of the quality of their decisions and actions (Hand, et al., 2001; W. Kim et al., 2003; Mucksch, et al., 1996). Data mining (DM) technology can discover hidden relationships, patterns and interdependencies and generate rules to predict the correlations in data warehouses (Y. Su, et al., 2009c). However, only a few companies have implemented these technologies because of their inability to clearly measure the quality of data and consequently the quality risk of information derived from the data warehouse(Fisher, et al., 2003). Without this ability it becomes difficult for companies to estimate the cost of poor information to the organization (D. Ballou, Madnick, & Wang, 2003). For the above reasons, the risk management of the IQ for DM is been identified as a critical issue for companies. Therefore, we develop a methodology to model the quality risk of information based on the quality of the source databases and associated DM processes. The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. After a review of the relevant in Section 2, we introduce a forma1 model proposed for data warehousing and DM that attempts to support quality risks of different levels in Section 3. In section 4, we discuss the different quality risks that need to be considered for the output of Restriction operator, Projection and Cubic product operators. Section 5 describes an information quality assurance exercise undertaken for a finance company as part of a larger project in auto finance marketing. A methodology to estimate the effects of data accuracy, completeness and consistency on the data aggregate functions Count, Sum and Average is presented(Y. Su, et al., 2009a). The methodology should be of specific interest to quality assurance practitioners for projects that harvest warehouse data for decision support to the management. The assessment comprised ten checks in three broad categories, to ensure the quality of information collected over 1103 attributes. The assessment discovered four critical gaps in the data that had to be corrected before the data could be transitioned to the analysis phase. Section 6 applies above methodology to evaluate two information quality characteristics accuracy and completeness for the HIS database. Four quantitative measures are introduced to assess the risk of medical information quality. The methodology is illustrated through a medical domain: infection control. The results show the methodology was effective to detection and aversion of risk factors(Y. Su, et al., 2009b).

A novel device, named EPhone, developed for rural doctor diagnosing and/or patient monitoring is presented. This device is embedded in a mobile phone and includes amplifier circuit, filter circuit, a microcontroller, a data management, etc. The heart rate, the ST segment deviation and the premature ventricular beats rate are computed insided phone and a normality limit is set for each one. When one of these limits is reached, an ECG strip is transmitted to the Three-level Healthcare Network in Rural China (THNRC) via 2G mobile phones and the device waits to display the receiving answer. The methods used to analyze the ECG were tested with real ECGs and all the QRS complexes were detected. Since many of the users are rural doctors and technically skilled, and it is of paramount importance that the device is very convenient to carry. This has been achieved by providing embeded device and displaying unambiguous messages on a screen of mobile phone. When the communication process was tested, a remarkable difference between the transmitting and receiving signals was not observed.

This paper presents the work to develop low cost movable/mobile community e-health system for rural area. The system is integrated VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) technology with BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) to offer telecommunication and internet access. Ensuring 'connectivity' through this sort of initiatives will prove to be valuable for Rural areas such as three-level medical and health service networks as this connectivity may lead to e-learning, e-health etc. business or service initiatives and ultimately leading towards uplifting of communities by narrowing down the digital divide. The future perspective for the development of rural communications including the applications of e-health care will also be discussed.

High quality information has a significant impact on improving operation performance and patient satisfaction, as well as resolving patient disputes. Based on the analysis of the perioperative process, information quality is considered as an important contributory factor in improving patient throughput. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework to use computer simulations in modeling information flow of hospital process for operating room management (ORM). Additionally, we conduct simulation studies in different levels of the information quality for ORM. The results of our studies provide evidence that information quality can drive process performance in several phases of the ORM.

Many of the concepts and procedures of product quality control can be applied to the problem of producing better information quality (IQ). Based on the analysis of the hospital process, information quality is considered as an important contributory factor in improving hospital process performance. This paper presents a set of ideas, concepts, models, and procedures appropriate to hospital business processes that can be used to determine the information quality delivered, or transferred, to information customers. These processes produce information on a regular or as-requested basis. The model systematically tracks relevant attributes of the information quality such as timeliness, accuracy and cost. Measures of these attributes can then be used to analyze potential improvements to the hospital process under consideration. Finally, a simulation study is given to demonstrate the various features of the perioperative process system and show how it can be used to analyze and reduce delays and cancellations in surgical care.

Purpose – Only limited attention has been paid to the issue of Measurement Data Quality (MDQ) in a metrology context. To address this critique of the literature a methodology to assure MDQ was proposed. Methodology – The study proposes a methodology which consists of four steps can be used to 1 identify the importance of a measurement (identification), 2 determine accuracy and precision (determination), 3 evaluate the criticality of the measurement to its impact on the final result (evaluation) and 4 record the facts that influenced the decision making process (documentation). Findings –When followed and properly documented, these four steps can help ensure our measurements are valid and worthwhile. Identifying the important measurements that are made, determining the level of accuracy required and then using the proper tools to make the measurements will yield valid, useful results.

Operating rooms are regarded as the most costly hospital facilities. Due to rising costs and risks, it is necessary to optimize performance of the operating rooms. High quality information has a significant effect on improving process performance and patient satisfaction, as well as resolving patient disputes. Based on the analysis of the operation process, information quality (IQ) is considered as an important contributory factor in improving patient throughput. In this paper, a theoretical framework and main content are presented. Through the establishment of quantitative information, quality indicators such as Trace-ability, Believability and Reputation, and the effect on process performance (registered queue length, waiting time, utilization of hospital facilities), together with the cost of the operating process, are analyzed from the theoretical aspect and then verified by simulation technology. Finally, the results of our studies provide evidence that simulation can provide effective decision support to drive performance in operating rooms in several phases of the IQ improvement.