Luis Fernandez-luque - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Luis Fernandez-luque
Introduction: Videos are among the most common types of information resources in the Web 2.0. For... more Introduction: Videos are among the most common types of information resources in the Web 2.0. For example, in YouTube hundreds of users are distributing thousands of health videos in their channels. These users include hospitals, medical organizations, clinicians, individual patients, and others. Automated techniques for effectively searching health videos on YouTube remain an unmet challenge, and there are YouTube users providing health videos with dubious claims and even misleading information. Finding trusted and relevant channels is sometimes hard using traditional search tools, as even highly "relevant" channels in YouTube may be irrelevant from a health point of view (e.g. singers, herbal cures). In this study we explore the use of social network analysis on a community of channels about diabetes in YouTube. We studied how different metrics of social network analysis (e.g. prestige of the nodes) can help to determine the characteristics of the channels. Our hypothesi...
Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública
et al. mSalUV: un nuevo sistema de mensajería móvil para el control de la diabetes en México. Rev... more et al. mSalUV: un nuevo sistema de mensajería móvil para el control de la diabetes en México. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2014;35(5/6):371-7.
The use of social media (also termed 'Web 2.0') is growing in healthcare and academia, bu... more The use of social media (also termed 'Web 2.0') is growing in healthcare and academia, but there has been little research of many important issues. The workshop will discuss the development of a research agenda around several issues, including investigating the ways in which social media are currently being used in healthcare and academia and how their use might be further developed in the fu-ture. Participants will also explore ways in which social media might provide novel research tools or methods. Brief presentations will set the context for active discussion, and will be supported before and after the workshop by online discus-sions and other use of social media to develop the research agenda deliverables. The research agenda will support work by IMIA and its members. The workshop will also discuss possible formation of a new EFMI Social Media Working Group.
El ePaciente y las redes sociales es un libro que aborda en profundidad el tema de los pacientes ... more El ePaciente y las redes sociales es un libro que aborda en profundidad el tema de los pacientes y las redes sociales, es decir la web 2.0 aplicada a la salud desde la perspectiva del paciente. Así, a través del libro se hace un estudio detallado de este movimiento participativo, analizando sus luces y sus sombras, se presentan los principales recursos disponibles relacionados y se plantean las tendencias de futuro.
AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings / AMIA Symposium. AMIA Symposium, 2014
Vaccination campaigns are one of the most important and successful public health programs ever un... more Vaccination campaigns are one of the most important and successful public health programs ever undertaken. People who want to learn about vaccines in order to make an informed decision on whether to vaccinate are faced with a wealth of information on the Internet, both for and against vaccinations. In this paper we develop an automated way to score Internet search queries and web pages as to the likelihood that a person making these queries or reading those pages would decide to vaccinate. We apply this method to data from a major Internet search engine, while people seek information about the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. We show that our method is accurate, and use it to learn about the information acquisition process of people. Our results show that people who are pro-vaccination as well as people who are anti-vaccination seek similar information, but browsing this information has differing effect on their future browsing. These findings demonstrate the need for healt...
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 2015
Chlamydia is the most common reportable sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Norway, and its inc... more Chlamydia is the most common reportable sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Norway, and its incidence in the two northernmost counties has been disclosed to be nearly the double of the Norwegian average. The latest publicly available rates showed that 85.6% of the new cases were diagnosed in people under 29 years old. The information and communication technologies are among the most powerful influences in the lives of young people. The Internet can potentially represent a way to educate on sexual health and encourage young people, and especially youth, to be tested for STDs. If hospital websites include an easy and anonymous system for scheduling appointments with the clinic, it is possible that this could lead to an increase in the number of people tested for STDs. The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of a game-based appointment system on the frequency of consultations at a venereology unit and on the use of an educational web app. An A/B testing methodology is used. Users from the city of Tromsø, in North Norway, will be randomized to one of the two versions of the game-style web app on sexual health at www.sjekkdeg.no. Group A will have access to educational content only, while group B will have, in addition, access to a game-based appointment system with automatic prioritization. After one year of the trial, it will be analyzed if the game-based appointment system increases the number of consultations at the venereology unit and if health professionals deem the system useful. This study will explore if facilitating the access to health services for youth through the use of a game-based appointment system integrated in a game-style web app on sexual health education can have an impact on appointment rates. The trial is registered at clinicaltrials.org under the identifier ClinicalTrials.gov NCT:02128620.
![Research paper thumbnail of [mSalUV: a new mobile messaging system for diabetes control in Mexico]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/40324559/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Revista panamericana de salud pública = Pan American journal of public health
Design and develop a mobile messaging system called mSalUV, which reminds patients with type 2 di... more Design and develop a mobile messaging system called mSalUV, which reminds patients with type 2 diabetes about taking their medication and attending appointments and promotes healthy lifestyles, and explore patient opinion regarding use of the system. The study had three stages: 1) design and development of mSalUV; 2) design and development of text messages; and 3) exploration of patient opinion regarding use of mSalUV. The mSalUV system was created and around 40 text messages were designed. A total of 1 850 messages were sent during the 45 day intervention. Patients thought that mSalUV helped them to treat their disease and that it was easy to use, they were inclined to continue using the system in the future, and people close to them (family members and support networks) supported them using it. Furthermore, they perceived the system as "someone that cared about them." The results suggest that a system such as mSalUV would be well accepted by its potential users; in this ...
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2013
Diavideos is a web platform that collects trustworthy diabetes health videos from YouTube and off... more Diavideos is a web platform that collects trustworthy diabetes health videos from YouTube and offers them in a easy way. YouTube is a big repository of health videos, but good content is sometimes mixed with misleading and harmful videos such as promoting anorexia [1]. Diavideos is a web portal that provides easy access to a repository of trustworthy diabetes videos. This poster describes Diavideos and explains the crawling method used to retrieve these videos from trusted channels.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2013
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and especially chlamydia is a worrying problem among North-N... more Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and especially chlamydia is a worrying problem among North-Norwegian youngsters. Gamified web applications should be valued for sexual health education, and thus STDs prevention, for their potential to get users engaged and involved with their healthcare. Aiming to achieve that youngsters become more aware of STDs we have developed "sjekkdeg.no", a gamified web application focused on sexual health targeting North-Norwegian youngsters. Gamification techniques like avatars, achievement-based gifts and social network sharing buttons have been implemented in the site that includes educational content on sexual health and a STDs symptom checker. Preliminary results show that the game-style web app could be useful to encourage users to learn more on sexual health and STDs and thus changing their risky behaviors and preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
Applied clinical informatics, 2011
There is an increasing interest in health games including simulation tools, games for specific co... more There is an increasing interest in health games including simulation tools, games for specific conditions, persuasive games to promote a healthy life style or exergames where physical exercise is used to control the game. The objective of the article is to review current literature about available health games and the impact related to game design principles as well as some educational theory aspects. Literature from the big databases and known sites with games for health has been searched to find articles about games for health purposes. The focus has been on educational games, persuasive games and exergames as well as articles describing game design principles. The medical objectives can either be a part of the game theme (intrinsic) or be totally dispatched (extrinsic), and particularly persuasive games seem to use extrinsic game design. Peer support is important, but there is only limited research on multiplayer health games. Evaluation of health games can be both medical and te...
Yearbook of medical informatics, 2011
Objectives: : :
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2011
Respiration exercises are an important part in the pulmonary rehabilitation of COPD (chronic obst... more Respiration exercises are an important part in the pulmonary rehabilitation of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients. Furthermore, previous research has demonstrated that showing respiration pattern helps the patients to improve their breathing skills. We have developed a low cost and non-invasive prototype based on the Wii remote game controller infrared camera to provide BPM (breaths per minute) measurement as feedback. It can also be a comfortable solution without wires, batteries or any kind of electronics but just wearing passive markers. The lab evaluation with 7 healthy individuals showed that this approach is feasible when users are resting of their exercise. The BPM monitored during the tests presented less than 15% of maximum error and the RMSE (root mean square error) was lower than 6% in all the tests. Further research is needed to evaluate and adapt the system for COPD patients. In addition, more work is needed to develop applications that can be built t...
Conference proceedings : ... Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual Conference, 2010
Health consumers have embraced the web to obtain access to health information and to socialize an... more Health consumers have embraced the web to obtain access to health information and to socialize and share knowledge with peers. Additionally, the web has become a more interactive and rich platform with the integration of health applications and services, such as Personal Health Records. Some of these applications provide personalized interactions based on user specific characteristics. In this paper we provide an overview of Personalized Health Applications in the Web 2.0. We reviewed the health applications integrated in Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault and Facebook. We studied the goals of the applications and also the personalized feedback they provided.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2009
The use of computers in health education started more than a decade ago, mainly for tailoring hea... more The use of computers in health education started more than a decade ago, mainly for tailoring health educational resources. Nowadays, many of the computer-tailoring health education systems are using the Internet for delivering different types of health education. Traditionally, these systems are designed for a specific health problem, with a predefined library of educational resources. These systems do not take advantage of the increasing amount of educational resources available on the Internet. One of the reasons is that the high availability of content is making it more difficult to find the relevant one. The problem of information overload has been addressed for many years in the field of recommender systems. This paper is focused on the challenges and opportunities of merging recommender systems with personalized health education. It also discusses the usage of social networks and semantic technologies within this approach.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006
In this paper, a system developed for monitoring, assisting and educating people with diabetes, n... more In this paper, a system developed for monitoring, assisting and educating people with diabetes, named eDiab, is described. A central node (PDA or mobile phone) is used at the patient’s side for the transmission of medical information, health advices, alarms, reminders, etc. The software is adapted to blind users by using a screen reader called Mobile Speak Pocket/Phone. The glucose
ABSTRACT Una de las tendencias más relevantes en el ámbito de la salud y la tecnología es el &... more ABSTRACT Una de las tendencias más relevantes en el ámbito de la salud y la tecnología es el "e-paciente" o "el paciente empoderado". Con un mejor acceso a la información, las personas adquieren un mayor conocimiento sobre su salud, lo que les permite ser protagonistas en la toma de decisiones. Recientemente, este concepto se ha visto complementado por el "app-paciente", haciendo referencia a la importancia de los dispositivos móviles (y sus aplicaciones) en nuestras vidas. Tal es así, que la salud móvil (o "mHealth") es considerada una especialidad orientada a ayudar a las personas. Otra tendencia reciente a considerar es la ludificación o aplicación de dinámicas de juego a procesos tradicionalmente considerados "serios". Este libro pretende dar una visión crítica y científica del papel actual de la tecnología aplicada a la salud, huyendo de modas y tendencias interesadas. Y lo haremos mostrando los beneficios y las áreas de mejora aún existentes.
Maria Immaculada Grau*, Fundación iSYS & Primary Care Reseach group/IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain Fra... more Maria Immaculada Grau*, Fundación iSYS & Primary Care Reseach group/IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain Francisco J Grajales III, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Luis Fernandez-Luque*, Northern Research Institute, Tromso, Norway Belchin Kostov, Transverse Group for Research in Primary Care–IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain Jose Antonio Gallego, VP at Fundación iSYS, Barcelona, Spain Background: Approximately 63 Billion apps were downloaded in 2012, of which, an estimated 44 million were health-related. Paradoxically, most downloaded health-apps are seldomly used within a month of their initial download date, mainly because it is difficult for users to identify the overall quality of the app before it is downloaded. In essence, when users begin interacting with the recently downloaded app, they realize that it is not exactly what they were looking for. The variety options from which to download from have also been reported as overwhelming for patients. With hundreds, sometimes thousa...
Introduction: Videos are among the most common types of information resources in the Web 2.0. For... more Introduction: Videos are among the most common types of information resources in the Web 2.0. For example, in YouTube hundreds of users are distributing thousands of health videos in their channels. These users include hospitals, medical organizations, clinicians, individual patients, and others. Automated techniques for effectively searching health videos on YouTube remain an unmet challenge, and there are YouTube users providing health videos with dubious claims and even misleading information. Finding trusted and relevant channels is sometimes hard using traditional search tools, as even highly "relevant" channels in YouTube may be irrelevant from a health point of view (e.g. singers, herbal cures). In this study we explore the use of social network analysis on a community of channels about diabetes in YouTube. We studied how different metrics of social network analysis (e.g. prestige of the nodes) can help to determine the characteristics of the channels. Our hypothesi...
Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública
et al. mSalUV: un nuevo sistema de mensajería móvil para el control de la diabetes en México. Rev... more et al. mSalUV: un nuevo sistema de mensajería móvil para el control de la diabetes en México. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2014;35(5/6):371-7.
The use of social media (also termed 'Web 2.0') is growing in healthcare and academia, bu... more The use of social media (also termed 'Web 2.0') is growing in healthcare and academia, but there has been little research of many important issues. The workshop will discuss the development of a research agenda around several issues, including investigating the ways in which social media are currently being used in healthcare and academia and how their use might be further developed in the fu-ture. Participants will also explore ways in which social media might provide novel research tools or methods. Brief presentations will set the context for active discussion, and will be supported before and after the workshop by online discus-sions and other use of social media to develop the research agenda deliverables. The research agenda will support work by IMIA and its members. The workshop will also discuss possible formation of a new EFMI Social Media Working Group.
El ePaciente y las redes sociales es un libro que aborda en profundidad el tema de los pacientes ... more El ePaciente y las redes sociales es un libro que aborda en profundidad el tema de los pacientes y las redes sociales, es decir la web 2.0 aplicada a la salud desde la perspectiva del paciente. Así, a través del libro se hace un estudio detallado de este movimiento participativo, analizando sus luces y sus sombras, se presentan los principales recursos disponibles relacionados y se plantean las tendencias de futuro.
AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings / AMIA Symposium. AMIA Symposium, 2014
Vaccination campaigns are one of the most important and successful public health programs ever un... more Vaccination campaigns are one of the most important and successful public health programs ever undertaken. People who want to learn about vaccines in order to make an informed decision on whether to vaccinate are faced with a wealth of information on the Internet, both for and against vaccinations. In this paper we develop an automated way to score Internet search queries and web pages as to the likelihood that a person making these queries or reading those pages would decide to vaccinate. We apply this method to data from a major Internet search engine, while people seek information about the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. We show that our method is accurate, and use it to learn about the information acquisition process of people. Our results show that people who are pro-vaccination as well as people who are anti-vaccination seek similar information, but browsing this information has differing effect on their future browsing. These findings demonstrate the need for healt...
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 2015
Chlamydia is the most common reportable sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Norway, and its inc... more Chlamydia is the most common reportable sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Norway, and its incidence in the two northernmost counties has been disclosed to be nearly the double of the Norwegian average. The latest publicly available rates showed that 85.6% of the new cases were diagnosed in people under 29 years old. The information and communication technologies are among the most powerful influences in the lives of young people. The Internet can potentially represent a way to educate on sexual health and encourage young people, and especially youth, to be tested for STDs. If hospital websites include an easy and anonymous system for scheduling appointments with the clinic, it is possible that this could lead to an increase in the number of people tested for STDs. The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of a game-based appointment system on the frequency of consultations at a venereology unit and on the use of an educational web app. An A/B testing methodology is used. Users from the city of Tromsø, in North Norway, will be randomized to one of the two versions of the game-style web app on sexual health at www.sjekkdeg.no. Group A will have access to educational content only, while group B will have, in addition, access to a game-based appointment system with automatic prioritization. After one year of the trial, it will be analyzed if the game-based appointment system increases the number of consultations at the venereology unit and if health professionals deem the system useful. This study will explore if facilitating the access to health services for youth through the use of a game-based appointment system integrated in a game-style web app on sexual health education can have an impact on appointment rates. The trial is registered at clinicaltrials.org under the identifier ClinicalTrials.gov NCT:02128620.
Revista panamericana de salud pública = Pan American journal of public health
Design and develop a mobile messaging system called mSalUV, which reminds patients with type 2 di... more Design and develop a mobile messaging system called mSalUV, which reminds patients with type 2 diabetes about taking their medication and attending appointments and promotes healthy lifestyles, and explore patient opinion regarding use of the system. The study had three stages: 1) design and development of mSalUV; 2) design and development of text messages; and 3) exploration of patient opinion regarding use of mSalUV. The mSalUV system was created and around 40 text messages were designed. A total of 1 850 messages were sent during the 45 day intervention. Patients thought that mSalUV helped them to treat their disease and that it was easy to use, they were inclined to continue using the system in the future, and people close to them (family members and support networks) supported them using it. Furthermore, they perceived the system as "someone that cared about them." The results suggest that a system such as mSalUV would be well accepted by its potential users; in this ...
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2013
Diavideos is a web platform that collects trustworthy diabetes health videos from YouTube and off... more Diavideos is a web platform that collects trustworthy diabetes health videos from YouTube and offers them in a easy way. YouTube is a big repository of health videos, but good content is sometimes mixed with misleading and harmful videos such as promoting anorexia [1]. Diavideos is a web portal that provides easy access to a repository of trustworthy diabetes videos. This poster describes Diavideos and explains the crawling method used to retrieve these videos from trusted channels.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2013
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and especially chlamydia is a worrying problem among North-N... more Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and especially chlamydia is a worrying problem among North-Norwegian youngsters. Gamified web applications should be valued for sexual health education, and thus STDs prevention, for their potential to get users engaged and involved with their healthcare. Aiming to achieve that youngsters become more aware of STDs we have developed "sjekkdeg.no", a gamified web application focused on sexual health targeting North-Norwegian youngsters. Gamification techniques like avatars, achievement-based gifts and social network sharing buttons have been implemented in the site that includes educational content on sexual health and a STDs symptom checker. Preliminary results show that the game-style web app could be useful to encourage users to learn more on sexual health and STDs and thus changing their risky behaviors and preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
Applied clinical informatics, 2011
There is an increasing interest in health games including simulation tools, games for specific co... more There is an increasing interest in health games including simulation tools, games for specific conditions, persuasive games to promote a healthy life style or exergames where physical exercise is used to control the game. The objective of the article is to review current literature about available health games and the impact related to game design principles as well as some educational theory aspects. Literature from the big databases and known sites with games for health has been searched to find articles about games for health purposes. The focus has been on educational games, persuasive games and exergames as well as articles describing game design principles. The medical objectives can either be a part of the game theme (intrinsic) or be totally dispatched (extrinsic), and particularly persuasive games seem to use extrinsic game design. Peer support is important, but there is only limited research on multiplayer health games. Evaluation of health games can be both medical and te...
Yearbook of medical informatics, 2011
Objectives: : :
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2011
Respiration exercises are an important part in the pulmonary rehabilitation of COPD (chronic obst... more Respiration exercises are an important part in the pulmonary rehabilitation of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients. Furthermore, previous research has demonstrated that showing respiration pattern helps the patients to improve their breathing skills. We have developed a low cost and non-invasive prototype based on the Wii remote game controller infrared camera to provide BPM (breaths per minute) measurement as feedback. It can also be a comfortable solution without wires, batteries or any kind of electronics but just wearing passive markers. The lab evaluation with 7 healthy individuals showed that this approach is feasible when users are resting of their exercise. The BPM monitored during the tests presented less than 15% of maximum error and the RMSE (root mean square error) was lower than 6% in all the tests. Further research is needed to evaluate and adapt the system for COPD patients. In addition, more work is needed to develop applications that can be built t...
Conference proceedings : ... Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual Conference, 2010
Health consumers have embraced the web to obtain access to health information and to socialize an... more Health consumers have embraced the web to obtain access to health information and to socialize and share knowledge with peers. Additionally, the web has become a more interactive and rich platform with the integration of health applications and services, such as Personal Health Records. Some of these applications provide personalized interactions based on user specific characteristics. In this paper we provide an overview of Personalized Health Applications in the Web 2.0. We reviewed the health applications integrated in Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault and Facebook. We studied the goals of the applications and also the personalized feedback they provided.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2009
The use of computers in health education started more than a decade ago, mainly for tailoring hea... more The use of computers in health education started more than a decade ago, mainly for tailoring health educational resources. Nowadays, many of the computer-tailoring health education systems are using the Internet for delivering different types of health education. Traditionally, these systems are designed for a specific health problem, with a predefined library of educational resources. These systems do not take advantage of the increasing amount of educational resources available on the Internet. One of the reasons is that the high availability of content is making it more difficult to find the relevant one. The problem of information overload has been addressed for many years in the field of recommender systems. This paper is focused on the challenges and opportunities of merging recommender systems with personalized health education. It also discusses the usage of social networks and semantic technologies within this approach.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006
In this paper, a system developed for monitoring, assisting and educating people with diabetes, n... more In this paper, a system developed for monitoring, assisting and educating people with diabetes, named eDiab, is described. A central node (PDA or mobile phone) is used at the patient’s side for the transmission of medical information, health advices, alarms, reminders, etc. The software is adapted to blind users by using a screen reader called Mobile Speak Pocket/Phone. The glucose
ABSTRACT Una de las tendencias más relevantes en el ámbito de la salud y la tecnología es el &... more ABSTRACT Una de las tendencias más relevantes en el ámbito de la salud y la tecnología es el "e-paciente" o "el paciente empoderado". Con un mejor acceso a la información, las personas adquieren un mayor conocimiento sobre su salud, lo que les permite ser protagonistas en la toma de decisiones. Recientemente, este concepto se ha visto complementado por el "app-paciente", haciendo referencia a la importancia de los dispositivos móviles (y sus aplicaciones) en nuestras vidas. Tal es así, que la salud móvil (o "mHealth") es considerada una especialidad orientada a ayudar a las personas. Otra tendencia reciente a considerar es la ludificación o aplicación de dinámicas de juego a procesos tradicionalmente considerados "serios". Este libro pretende dar una visión crítica y científica del papel actual de la tecnología aplicada a la salud, huyendo de modas y tendencias interesadas. Y lo haremos mostrando los beneficios y las áreas de mejora aún existentes.
Maria Immaculada Grau*, Fundación iSYS & Primary Care Reseach group/IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain Fra... more Maria Immaculada Grau*, Fundación iSYS & Primary Care Reseach group/IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain Francisco J Grajales III, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Luis Fernandez-Luque*, Northern Research Institute, Tromso, Norway Belchin Kostov, Transverse Group for Research in Primary Care–IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain Jose Antonio Gallego, VP at Fundación iSYS, Barcelona, Spain Background: Approximately 63 Billion apps were downloaded in 2012, of which, an estimated 44 million were health-related. Paradoxically, most downloaded health-apps are seldomly used within a month of their initial download date, mainly because it is difficult for users to identify the overall quality of the app before it is downloaded. In essence, when users begin interacting with the recently downloaded app, they realize that it is not exactly what they were looking for. The variety options from which to download from have also been reported as overwhelming for patients. With hundreds, sometimes thousa...