The population is aging worldwide, creating new challenges to the quality of life of older adults and their families. Falls are an increasing, but not inevitable, threat to older adults. Information technologies provide several solutions to address falls, but smart homes and the most available solutions require expensive and invasive infrastructures. In this study, we propose a novel approach to classify and detect falls of older adults in their homes through low-resolution infrared sensors that are affordable, non-intrusive, do not disturb privacy, and are more acceptable to older adults. Using data collected between 2019 and 2020 with the eHomeseniors platform, we determine activity scores of older adults moving across two rooms in a house and represent an older adult fall through skeletonization. We find that our twofold approach effectively detects activity patterns and precisely identifies falls. Our study provides insights to physicians about the daily activities of their older adults and could potentially help them make decisions in case of abnormal behavior.

This study was published in the journal Sensor (MDPI) and is freely available to the public.

Evaluating health information system (HIS) quality is strategically advantageous for improving the quality of patient care. Nevertheless, few systematic studies have reported what methods, such as standards, processes, and tools, were proposed to evaluate HIS quality. This study aimed to identify and discuss the existing literature that describes standards, processes, and tools used to evaluate HIS quality. We conducted a systematic literature review using review guidelines focused on software and systems. We examined seven electronic databases—Scopus, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, and PubMed—to search for and select primary studies. Out of 782 papers, we identified 17 (2.2%) primary studies. We found that most of the primary studies addressed quality evaluation from a management perspective. On the other hand, there was little explicit and pragmatic evidence on the processes and tools that allowed for the evaluation of HIS quality. To promote quality evaluation of HISs, it is necessary to define mechanisms and methods that operationalize the standards in HISs. Additionally, it is necessary to create metrics that measure the quality of the most critical components and processes of HISs.

This paper was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.