Recent advances in mobile technologies have greatly extended traditional communication technologies to mobile devices. At the same time, healthcare environments are by nature "mobile" where doctors and nurses do not have fixed workspaces. Irregular and exceptional events are generated in daily hospital routines, such as operations rescheduling, laboratory/examination results, and adverse drug events. These events may create requests that should be delivered to the appropriate person at the appropriate time. Those requests that are classified as urgent are referred to as alerts. Efficient routing and monitoring of alerts are keys to quality and cost-effective healthcare services. Presently, these are generally handled in an ad hoc manner. In this paper, we propose the use of a healthcare alert management system to handle these alert messages systematically. We develop a model for specifying alerts that are associated with medical tasks and a set of parameters for their routing. We design an alert monitor that matches medical staff and their mobile devices to receive alerts, based on the requirements of these alerts. We also propose a mechanism to handle and reroute, if necessary, an alert message when it has not been acknowledged within a specific deadline.

With recent advances in mobile technologies and infrastructures, there are increasing demands for ubiquitous access to networked services. These services, generally known as m-services, extend supports from Web browsers on personal computers to handheld devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs. However, in general, the capabilities and bandwidth of these devices are significantly inferior to desktop computers over wired connections, which have been assumed by most Internet services. Instead of redesigning or adapting m-services in an ad-hoc manner for multiple platforms available in handheld devices, we propose a methodology for such adaptation based on three tiers: user interface views, data views, and process views. These views provide customization and help balance security and trust. User interface views provide alternative presentations of inputs and outputs. Data views summarize data over limited bandwidth and map heterogeneous data sources. In addition, we introduce a novel approach of applying process views to m-service adaptation, where mobile users may execute a more concise version or modified procedures of the original process. The process view also serves as the key mechanism for integrating user interface views and data views. In addition, we present a formal model on view consistency and integrity in our methodology. We demonstrate the feasibility of our methodology by extending a service negotiation subsystem into an m-service with multi-platform support.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether the internet users' privacy concerns (concerns for information privacy, CFIP) and perceived privacy control (PPC) affect their willingness to use internet web places in order to transact. A theoretical model is introduced that describes how users' CFIP and PPC may affect their willingness to transact through web places when personal information must be disclosed in order to accomplish the transaction.Design/methodology/approachThe research model is empirically tested using data collected with a survey that include items for each of the constructs of the model. The survey is administrated to 190 internet users and resulted in 142 usable responses through questionnaires. In order to test the hypotheses, multidimensional regression analysis is used.FindingsThe findings indicate that both users' CFIP and users' PPC (some dimensions of them) have direct impact not only to users' trust toward the web site as expected but also to the willingness to transact through the internet when personal information needs to be disclosed.Research limitations/implicationsIn this paper, an introductory analysis is conducted in order to preliminary test the validity and credibility of the research model. In this first approach, the multidimensional regression analysis is used. Currently, the paper deals with the use of structural equation modeling in order to better test the research model. The research could be conducted also online in order to investigate users' behavior under real circumstances.Practical implicationsThe more users know about their personal information the less willing they are to make purchases through internet. Moreover, if web places improve their mechanisms and procedures that correct better the inaccuracies and the errors in the users' stored personal data then users' willingness to retrieve information from web sites improves too.Originality/valueExisting studies constitute the basic theoretical framework but until now there is not a model that connects both users' CFIP and users' PPC with the willingness to transact through the internet and with users' trust upon the web sites.

When a disaster occurs, timely actions in response to urgent requests conveyed by critical messages (known as alerts) constitute a vital key to effectiveness. These actions include notifying potentially affected parties so that they can take precautionary measures, gathering additional information, and requesting remedial actions and resource allocation. However, there are different types of disasters such as epidemic outbreaks, natural disasters, major accidents, and terrorist attacks. At the same time, there are also many different parties involved such as governments, healthcare institutions, businesses, and individuals. To address these problems, we introduce a Disaster Notification and Resource Allocation System (DNRAS) based on an Alert Management System (AMS) implemented through Web services. This unified platform supports timely interactions among various parties, focusing on notification and monitoring, resource enquiry and allocation, as well as the mobility of information. We detail the mechanisms of these functions in our system, illustrating the Web services interface parameters for communications and interoperability. We illustrate the applicability of our approach with an example of an epidemic outbreak and discuss the advantage of our approach with respect to various stakeholders of our system.

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