Department of Computer and Systems Sciences

You are here:
DSV
Research
Projects

Projects

HEXAnord –HEalth teXt Analysis network in the Nordic and Baltic countries

Hexanord is a researcher network with participants involved in health science, computer science and information technology in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The overall aim of the network is to explore the differences and similarities in the texts in electronic patient records in the various countries by means of text mining. Another aim of the network is to strengthen cooperation between the participating universities in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Funding: Nordforsk.

Project manager: Hercules Dalianis.

Additional participants from DSV: Gunnar Nilsson, Martin Hassel, Sumithra Velupillai, Maria Skeppstedt, Sara Brissman.

Interlock: Stockholm - San Diego - Inter-Language collaboration in clinical NLP

A collaboration between Stockholm University and University of California San Diego 2011 - 2013.
Goal: Develop inter-language data sharing and collaboration in clinical NLP with a focus on user-driven applications.

Funding: Travel funding for researchers within the Stockholm University Academic Initiative.

Project manager: Sumithra Velupillai.

Participants: UCSD School of Medicine's Division of Biomedical Informatics: Dr. Wendy Chapman.
It for health, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University: Fil. Lic Sumithra Velupillai, Prof. Hercules Dalianis, Dr. Martin Hassel, M.D. PhD Maria Kvist, Maria Skeppstedt, Aron Henriksson, Prof. Gunnar Nilsson.

Visualisation of comorbidity network with Comorbidity-View

Comorbidity is a term that describes how diseases cooccur and are grouped within the population. One way to identify such groups is to find recurring patterns in large clinical data sets, such as patient records. We have previously made an initial study of comorbidity in a large number of patient records from the Stockholm County Council. This study resulted in a scientific article that focuses on pairwise groups of diseases, where we studied major endemic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and their sequelae.

Comorbidity-View aims to construct a demonstrator that presents all of the relationships between diseases that are co-morbid. These will be presented as nodes in a network with an interactive graphical interface that enables the exploration of these complex relationships. For this, we will make use of diagnosis codes (ICD-10) that are encoded in the records but also extract diagnoses from the free text notes in the medical records.

Funding: Internal, 3 months.

Project manager: Martin Hassel

Project participants: Hideyuki Tanushi, Hercules Dalianis, Mia Kvist

Web-based stress management using a holistic approach

An interdisciplinary IT and health project (eHealth) with researchers from the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, and School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, has since the start in late 2009 developed a prototype of a web based stress management system. The e-health system combines various flexible forms of learning and practical training in stress management. People with stress-related symptoms are offered a combination of information about the latest research, advice, interactive exercises, and communication in social forums and with experts in the area of stress management. The system is based on the idea that people with stress-related problems have different needs and benefit from different types of help. It applies a unique concept for holistic web based interventions that
includes support from both experts and the community of people with
stress-related issues, based on research of social networks for improved
health. The researchers in the project have presented the e-health system and the research behind the system in various scientific forums. The project continues with the development and testing of the prototype, and examination of new technologies and how they can be applied to further increase flexibility of the system.

Funding: Internal.

Project manager: Åsa Smedberg

PhD student: Gunnar Wettergren

Additional participants: Jacob Palme and Hélène Sandmark, School of Health and Medical Sciences, Public Health Sciences, Örebro University.

Open services in social care

The aims of the project are to develop more open e-services for social services within elderly and disabled care, to conceptualise open social services, to facilitate a working method with a user focus, and to facilitate integration.

Funding: Vinnova. Collaboration partners: Järfälla kommun, Sirius IT.

Project manager: Johannes Helfrich, HumanTech.

PhD student: Gustaf Juell-Skielse.

Additional participant: Petia Wohed

Completed projects

IMAIL – Intelligent e-mail answering service for eGovernment

The objective of the IMAIL project is to use automatic language tools to speed up and automate responses to e-mails within the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and Statistics Sweden, which would change the workload of administrative staff and enable them utilise their skills better. Ultimately, this would result in better service for citizens and patients.

Funding: Vinnova.

Collaboration partners: Försäkringskassan, Statistiska centralbyrån, CSC-KTH.

Project manager: Hercules Dalianis.

Additional participants: Tessy C. Pargman, Ola Knutsson, Eriks Sneiders, Martin Hassel.

Web4Health

Web4Health (pronounced “web-for-health”) is a health website with answers to some 1 000 questions within the field of mental health and preventative health care. Users can ask questions in their native language using search words, or ask a human expert. Web4Health is complete in Swedish, English and German, and is partially complete in Finnish, German, Greek, Italian and Polish. The site has 600 ,000 unique visitors per month.

Web4Health (pronounced “web-for-health”) is a health website with answers to around 1 000 questions within the field of mental health and keep-fit. Users can ask questions in their native language, using search words, or ask a human expert. Web4Health is complete in Swedish, English and German, and also partially complete in Finnish, German, Greek, Italian and Polish. The site has 600 ,000 unique visitors per month.

Funding: The Web4Health project was originally (2002-2004) funded by an EU grant. The research is now being funded by a number of smaller sources, including a faculty grant to Stockholm University, a research grant from the Carl Trygger Foundation, and income from advertising on the website.

Collaboration partners: The following organisations participated in the original EU project: KTH/DSV, Omega Generation Srl in Italy, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ioannina in Greece, Emergis health centre, Goes in Holland, Systran S.A. in France, Framtidspsykologi Stockholm handelsbolag in Sweden, Fachhochschule Nordostniedersachen in Germany and Netdoktor in Denmark. Since the EU grant ended, the research has been financed by Stockholm University/DSV, Framtidspsykologi Stockholm handelsbolag, advertising income from the website and Klinik Lüneburger Heide Bad Bevensen in Germany.

Project manager: Professor Jacob Palme.

PhD student: Andrea Andrenucci.

VIP-PA, Visualisations of patient centred process and business models in health and social care

The aim of this project is to ensure the quality and safety of patient care. This will be achieved by gaining greater understanding of the relationship between strategic and operational processes, which will be described both visually and in other ways. The models that are developed can be used by politicians, health providers and industrial players.

Funding: Vinnova.

Collaboration partners: Karolinska institutet, (KI), Alkit communication.

Project manager: Sabine Koch, KI.

DSV-participants: Martin Henkel, Jelena Zdravkovic, Paul Johannesson.

KEA-Knowledge Extraction Agent

The aim of the KEA project is to identify new and hidden relations between the symptoms, diagnoses, medication, social situation, age and gender, etc. of patients using a large database that contains more than a million patient records with both structured and unstructured information, mainly free text.

Funding: Vinnova.

Collaboration partners: Stockholms läns landsting, Karolinska universitetssjukhuset.

Project manager: Hercules Dalianis.

PhD students: Sumithra Velupillai, Maria Skeppstedt.

Additional participant: Martin Hassel, Gunnar Nilsson, Andreas Amsenius