The Romanian Society of Medical Informatics

The Romanian Society of Medical Informatics
An Invitation from RSMI President, Sorana D. BOLBOACĂ

 

 

yEFMI supported by RSMI young professionals

EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE IN MEDICAL PRACTICE – Ph.D. student: Roxana-Denisa CAPRAȘ, Ph.D. supervisor: Prof. Dr. Sorana D. BOLBOACĂ: Evidence-based medical practice refers to the knowledge generated by clinical studies incorporated into medical guidelines and protocols that serve as pillars in decision-making. The research in this thesis started from the paradigm of “the best evidence”, amid the sharp rise of information technology, and attempted to answer three specific questions: Is the concept of EBM found in mobile medical apps? What is the level of perception and knowledge of EBM among Romanian physicians? Are the articles reporting on the treatment of endometriosis level 1, degree 1b evidence? Two medical apps answered all the criteria defined in the research protocol on the evidence-based medical app: DynaMed and Medscape. Romanian physicians proved to have limited knowledge of EBM and a positive attitude towards the concept. They made use of mobile medical resources without understanding which of these were evidence-based. Regarding the endometriosis treatment, even if RCTs presented low bias risk, their lack of details in the research design made study replication problematic. Verification of validity and reliability of the reported treatment could not be attained. Consequently, none of the RCTs was found adequate to be considered of high-quality evidence, equivalent to level 1b in the hierarchy of evidence.

MULTIMODAL INTERACTION IN 3D – Ph.D. student: Stelian-Nicolae NICOLA, Ph.D. supervisor: Prof.  Lăcrămioara STOICU-TIVADAR: The work during the Ph.D. research concerns new learning support for medical students exemplified with several 3D applications for training on specific topics in medicine and investigates the impact on medical students. The applications were built using new concepts: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, as environments familiar to young people, and gamification. Leap Motion and the VR headset are the devices to control the applications and provide a better human-computer/mobile phone interaction as compared to the current ones. The concepts and the new technologies to display/visualize the applications are the core of the Mixed Reality concept resulting from combining the 4 applications implemented for medical education.

 

PROJECTS with RSMI members as active contributors

  • EU-NET4AGE-FRIENDLY COST Action will establish an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers and stakeholders from all sectors. It aims to foster awareness and to support the creation and implementation of smart, healthy indoor and outdoor environments for present and future generations. (oct. 2020-oct 2024)

RSMI members, Prof. Lăcrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar (co-chairing WG3), Lect. Mihaela Cișan-Vida, Lect. Oana Sorina Chirila is involved in assessing existing applications activities and supporting the AAL systems developers’ point of view.

  • EU COST GoodBrother – aims to increase the awareness of the ethical, legal, and privacy issues associated with audio- and video-based monitoring and to propose privacy-aware working solutions for assisted living, by creating an interdisciplinary community of researchers and industrial partners from different fields (computing, engineering, healthcare, law, sociology) and other stakeholders (users, policymakers, public services), stimulating new research and innovation. (sept 2020-sept. 2024)

RSMI members, Prof. Lăcrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar, Ph.D. student Stelian Nicola and master student Gabriela Varga are active in WG3 and will contribute to Deliverable Year 1: White paper on audio-and video-based solutions for AAL with Gesture recognition applications review and critical analysis.

Both projects are supported also by EFMI.

  • HosmartAI, an EU financed project- AI for the smart hospital of the future – will create a common open Integration Platform with the necessary tools to facilitate and measure the benefits of integrating digital technologies (robotics and AI) in the healthcare system. A central hub will offer multi-faceted lasting functionalities (Marketplace, Co-creation space, Benchmarking) to healthcare stakeholders, combined with a collection of methods, tools, and solutions to integrate and deploy AI-enabled solutions. (Jan. 2021- May 2024)

RSMI members, Prof. Lăcrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar (managing actives for the EFMI partner), Lect. Mihaela Crișan-Vida are involved in standards and security and education/certification activities.

 

NURSING WG ROMANIA

Most of the Nursing-Ro group members are nurses who practice their profession in public and private hospitals and health care units in the country. During this difficult period, nurses from our group participated in the first line to take care of COVID patients. On behalf of SRIM, I thank them for their effort and work during the pandemic. We have nurses as Ph.D. students or who defended the thesis and are involved in Master’s programs and national and international research projects (SimLab; European C19_SPACE).

Their research activity has materialized in BDI, ISI publications. Our group members have received national and international recognition being awarded at different congresses (RoMedinf 2019; ESICM Global ICU Award).

 Several group members are associated professors in Romanian Medical Universities. National conferences with medical topics (RoMedinf, SRATI…) organized special sections, workshops, and training programs for Nursing and Nursing Informatics.

Paul Cotrau, NI RSMI WG, presenting his RoMedinf award together with RSMI Honorary member Ioana Moisil, and Corina Vernic, the dynamic chair of NI RSMI WG.

 

Romanian Society of Medical Informatics – since  foundation to 2010

George I Mihalas, PhD, FEFMI, FIAHS

EFMI President (2006-2008)

RSMI President (1998-2010)

Romanian Society of Medical Informatics RSMI is one of the most active similar societies in Europe, with a rich record; a detailed description of its activities within the context of the history of medical informatics in Romania was published in the 2018 issue of the Yearbook of Medical Informatics [1]. We will synthesize here the most important moments and achievements of our society. More details are also on our website [2]. Short historical view. The first organized event dedicated to medical informatics took place in 1977 in Satu Mare, initiated by Virgil Enatescu, as a satellite symposium connected to a larger event on “Informatics and Management”. Since then, despite the difficulties of those times in a communist country, annual conferences dedicated to medical informatics (with minor exceptions) took place in Romania, consolidating a community interested in computer science applications in the medical field – clinical practice, medical education, biomedical research, and healthcare management. The first educational program for medical students was introduced in 1984 by George Mihalas, at the Institute of Medicine in Timisoara (today “Victor Babes” University of Medicine and Pharmacy). The support from Jan van Bemmel helped us to have, from the beginning, the content at European standards [3]. In 1986 the Ministry of Health started some courses for healthcare professionals, synthesized in a monograph which was awarded the Prize of the Romanian Academy in 1990 [4]. The collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe opened the possibility to officially register the Romanian Society of Medical Informatics in 1990. The RSMI members have been involved in a large variety of activities – either as professional duties (educational, industrial, healthcare, management) or complementary activities (expertise, consulting, organizing scientific events), carried out both at the national and international levels. Educational programs. The first course of medical informatics started in 1984 was optional, but in 1990 it became mandatory for all medical students in Romania; a strategy for the educational program was developed [5], including the introduction of the doctoral level by George Mihalas in 1992 [6]. The Master level was initiated in 2010 by Lacrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar at University Politehnica Timisoara. [https://www.facebook.com/MasterSIIS] Cooperation at the national level. Several RSMI members were involved in healthcare informatics activities in hospitals or healthcare authorities, including the Ministry of Health with its specialized Centre for Healthcare Statistics and Informatics (Dan Farcas, Mariana Bazavan). Several health and medical informatics projects were financially supported by ICI – Central Institute for Informatics (Doina Banciu, Adriana Alexandru), having their results often presented in our conferences. In 2003 RSMI supported the foundation of ProRec Romania, which was a member of the EuroRec consortium in European projects (Mircea Focsa). RSMI also had good cooperation with the Romanian Society of Applied Medical Informatics (Andrei Achimas), with the Romanian Society of Dental Medical Informatics (Elena Podoleanu), and HL7 Romania (Florica Moldovan). Valuable research activities were done in cooperation with the Centre for Biological Systems Modeling and Data Analysis of Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy (Diana Lungeanu) and with the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences – Commission of Medical Informatics and Data Protection (George Mihalas). International activities. In 1994, RSMI affiliated to EFMI and IMIA, being represented both by national representatives and by chairing/co-chairing some working groups (MICIT – Medical Informatics in Countries in Transition, HID – Health Informatics for Development, IMIA History WG). Several RSMI members acted also as experts for European Commission in project evaluation or monitoring. RSMI also organized two EFMI Special Topic Conferences, one in Bucharest 2001 [7] and one in Timisoara [8], both with a large audience and very well quoted by the participants. We are proud to mention that two presidents of EFMI came from RSMI: George Mihalas (2006-2008) and Lăcrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar (2018-2020).

 

RSMI Presidents

Viorel Moga (Sibiu) 1990-1992, Virgil Enatescu V (Satu Mare) 1992-1998, George Mihalas (Timisoara) 1998-2010, Lacramioara Stoicu-Tivadar (Timisoara) 2010-2018, Sorana Bolboaca (Cluj-Napoca) 2018-.

 

RSMI Working Groups and chairs

DENT – Dental Informatics (Elena Podoleanu)

EDU – Education in Biomedical Informatics (Diana Lungeanu)

iEHAR – Interoperability and EHR (Lăcrămioara Stoicu-Tivadar, Mihaela Crișan-Vida)

ImaMed – Medical Imaging (Mihaela Ionescu)

NURSIE – Nursing Medical Informatics (Corina Vernic)

WDS – Wireless Devices and Sensors (Sorin Pușcoci)

 

RSMI members with important contributions (Vice-presidents, Secretaries, Treasurers, Scientific Secretaries, Censors)

Mariana Bazavan V (Bucharest), Mihaela Crisan-Vida (Timisoara), Dan Farcas (Bucharest), Gabriela Georgescu (Iasi), Ioana Moisil (Sibiu), Marius Mărușteri (Targu Mures), Oana Chirila (Timisoara), Calin Muntean (Timisoara), Tiberiu Spircu (Bucharest), Mihai Tarata (Craiova), Cristina Dascălu (Iasi),

The Center for Modeling Biological Systems and Data Analysis (CMSBAD) has an interdisciplinary research team with medical doctors, computer scientists, physicists, and computer engineers interested in the mathematical modeling of biological phenomena and statistical analysis of medical data. CMSBAD conducts scientific projects in the field of tissue engineering, human body composition analysis by physical methods, a sonic representation of medical data, and inter-disciplinary analysis of biomedical data. Various bio-printing techniques are applied to build multi-cellular structures (such as tissue constructs that mimic the tumor microenvironment, or vascular structures) and computational models are developed to study cellular self-organization in tissue constructs assembled in the laboratory. Data science solutions are applied to make sense of biomedical data in various collaborative projects aiming to contribute to the understanding of biological phenomena and/or to the improvement of health care. CMSBAD research activity is accompanied by educational projects. Its members also are active faculty members and have been participating in interdisciplinary master programs, housed by the other public universities in Timisoara: MSc Information Systems in Health Care at the University Politehnica Timisoara; MSc Statistical Methods and Techniques in Health and Clinical Research at the University Politehnica Timisoara; MSc Bioinformatics at the West University.

Members of CMSBAD (alphabetical order): Stelian Arjoca, Raluca Horhat, Diana Lungeanu, Raluca Lupusoru, Gheorghe-Ioan Mihalas, Viktorian Miok, Adrian Neagu, Monica Neagu, Andrea Pasquini.

 

References

  • Mihalas GI, Stoicu-Tivadar L. History of Romanian Medical Informatics: Learning from the Past to Reshape the Future. Yearb Med Inform 2018: http://dx.doi.org/10.15265/
  • srimed.ro/ (as on April 26th, 2021)
  • Mihalas GI: Romanian medical informatics and professor Jan H. van Bemmel’s support – Dr. Honoris Causa bestowed by Victor Babes University. Methods Inf Med 2006;45(6):668-70.
  • Popescu O, Enatescu V, Farcas D, Mihalas GI, Petrescu O, Popa S. Informatica Medicală. Bucuresti: Editura Medicală; 1988.
  • Mihalas GI, Lungeanu D. Strategy for Medical Informatics Education at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timisoara. Yearb Med Inform 1997:113-9.
  • Mihalas GI. Doctoral Level in Medical Informatics in Romania. In: Brender J, Christensen JP, Scherrer JR, McNair P (eds). Proc MIE 96, Stud Health Technol Inform 1996;34:910-4.
  • Mihalas GI, Engelbrecht R, Bazavan M, Hofdijk J, Naszlady A (eds). Healthcare Telematic Support in Transition Countries. Timisoara: Eurobit; 2002.
  • Reichert A, Mihalas GI, Stoicu-Tivadar L, Schulz S, Engelbrecht R (eds). Integrating Biomedical Information: From eCell to ePatient. Amsterdam: IOS Press; 2006.