Wenjun Lin

Background: Patient navigation is a critical component of health care delivery, facilitating connections with appropriate services. A new era of virtual navigation systems has emerged, with systems that can be accessed through websites or smartphone apps. However, it is unknown which features of these novel systems impact patient outcomes. Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to understand the current landscape of existing virtual navigation systems. In this review, we will determine the features of these systems, as well as the patient outcomes and accessibility barriers associated with them that have been reported in the literature. Methods: This review will follow the guidelines for scoping reviews outlined by the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. This will include systems that provide recommendations for health care, mental health and addiction services, and social services. This will include systems designed for patients, caregivers, and/or care providers. A search strategy will be used to locate both published and unpublished literature. The databases to be searched include PubMed, PsycINFO (ProQuest), Cochrane Library, Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate), Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (EBSCO), ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Library. Papers will be screened and selected, and data will be extracted by 2 independent members of the research team. The extracted data will primarily focus on outcomes and features of the virtual navigation systems. This will include the information they ask of users and the content and format of the information on services they provide. Results: Funding for this project was received in May 2024. As of June 2026, abstract and full-text screening have been completed, data extraction is underway, and data analysis has not begun yet. Our search resulted in the retrieval of 14,461 studies that were eligible for screening. We anticipate that the full scoping review manuscript will be prepared for submission by winter 2027. Results will be presented in tabular format and accompanied by a narrative summary. Conclusions: This review will synthesize the current literature on virtual navigation systems that aim to connect patients to appropriate health care services. By identifying trends and gaps, this review will provide critical information for the development of new and innovative systems that can support health care and public health systems.

BACKGROUND Patient navigation is a critical component of health care delivery, facilitating connections with appropriate services. A new era of virtual navigators are being developed that can be accessed through the web or smartphone application. However, it is unknown what features make virtual navigators accessible and reliable. OBJECTIVE The objective of this scoping review is to understand the current landscape of existing virtual navigation systems. In this review we will determine the features of these systems and barriers to accessibility they’ve identified. METHODS This review will follow the guidelines for scoping reviews outlined by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology. A search strategy will be used to locate both published and unpublished literature. The databases to be searched include PubMed, PsycINFO (ProQuest), Cochrane Library, Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate), Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (EBSCO), ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Library. Articles will be screened, selected, and extracted by 2 independent members of the research team. Results will be presented in table format and accompanied by a narrative summary. RESULTS As of September 2025, the preliminary stages of the scoping review have been completed. We anticipate the full scoping review manuscript will be prepared for submission by February 2026. CONCLUSIONS This review will synthesize the current literature of virtual navigation tools and recommendations systems that aim to connect users to the appropriate health care services. By identifying trends and gaps, this review will provide critical information for the development of new and innovative systems that can support healthcare and public health systems.

This paper presents a model for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) in the modern era of data explosion and globalisation. Application here refers to software, which is in essence data system, and data refers to both information and knowledge (data serves as a vehicle for information as well as knowledge). The salient features of the model are: (1) separation of business functions from applications and enterprises, (2) three-layer architecture of the model (conceptual or semantic level, external or application level, internal or realisation level), and (3) integration of structured, semi-structured and non-structured data. To our best knowledge, the existing model or solution to EAI does not hold all the three features. A case study is presented to illustrate how the model works. The model can be used by an individual enterprise or a group of enterprises that form a network, e.g., a holistic supply chain network.

With the advent of mobile applications in health service systems, concerns such as security, privacy, usability, and resilience have been raised. We developed a system view of the concepts of security, privacy, resilience along with their relationship, and proposed a set of principles for designing a mobile application linking the resilience and security in privacy protection. Such study was not found in literature before. This system's view of privacy, security, and resilience has laid a foundation to develop a more effective service system. A case study is presented to illustrate how the proposed principles work in a mobile healthcare application.