Health Informatics Programs Research Articles

Sharing the Educational Wealth: A Nursing and Health Informatics Program Collaboration.

Sharing the Educational Wealth:A Nursing and Health Informatics Program Collaboration Robin Brewster, DNP, RN, AGNP-BC (bio), Cathleen Scully, DNP, RN, AGNP-BC (bio), Anam Saeed, BS (bio), Shreyi Rimal Chhetri, BS (bio), and Laura Irigoyen, BS (bio) With the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, health information technology became identified as a strategic focus for improving patient care and lowering health care costs.1 Health care needs are projected to require significant expansion of the informatics workforce.2 A CompTIA workforce study of 1,061 global information technology (IT) managers found that the majority of organizations felt that gaps in IT skill sets significantly affected their business operations.3 Educational programs must provide the training to meet those workforce needs, covering the full range of IT expertise and skill sets required to fill those identified gaps. These programs must be able to provide hands-on training in functioning health care sites to be effective3, and must include components of data quality management, confidentiality and security, and secondary uses of clinical data and information.4 Securing appropriate clinical sites is a challenge for every educational program, but becomes especially difficult when the targeted clinical expertise involves access to protected health information (PHI). George Mason University’s College of Health and Human Services has developed a unique and effective approach to providing clinical experiences for health care informatics technology (HIT) students by forming a collaboration between the School of Nursing and the Health Informatics program. This collaboration was piloted in the summer of 2015, and involved three undergraduate Health Informatics students working with the data manager of the Mason and Partner (MAP) clinics. The pilot placement of informatics interns into primary care clinics is an example of [End Page xiv] the transdisciplinary model of care that the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved advocates for optimal care to the underserved (ACU, clinicians.org). Not only were the interns taught the daily operations of a clinic system supported by federal, state, and private grant funds, they were also able to see the realities and challenges of using the data generated. They also profited when they transmitted what they had learned to others: There is no better “real world” experience for an intern than observing and teaching the other clinical students how to use an EHR system. Mason and Partner Clinics Since October 2013, the George Mason University School of Nursing, located in Fairfax County, Virginia, has successfully launched three academic nurse-managed health clinics in partnership with Fairfax County, Prince William County (Virginia), the local school systems, community centers, the local health department in Prince William County, and the Medical Reserve Corps in these two counties. The purpose of the MAP clinics is to provide a network of weekly health care clinics managed by nursing faculty with collaborative care provided by Mason nursing students and students from various other health-related disciplines. The clinics provide community-based health care to low-income, uninsured, immigrant, and other vulnerable populations using an interprofessional treatment team approach. The clinics have two main goals: To provide interprofessional practice sites in community-based settings for student clinical/field experiences, and to increase access to low-cost primary health care with an emphasis on education and referral to improve health care measures. These clinics are staffed by Mason nurse practitioner (NP) faculty (primary care and behavioral health), other faculty acting in support roles (pharmacy and education), and students (graduate and undergraduate) in clinical practicums for a variety of programs, including nursing, psychology, nutrition, and social work. Each MAP clinic provides care to approximately 25 patients each day. Over the course of the 200+ days the clinics have operated, they have provided health care services to over 3,800 unique patients, ranging from newborn to age 96 years, speaking 32 languages, and encompassing all race categories. This academic-community clinic requires unique IT setup and support. The IT setup and data management are performed by a single data manager and are designed to provide a mobile, self-contained IT solution (i.e., the computers and Internet access are transported to the site each clinic day and configured/scaled securely to support the specific services...

The Importance of Informatics for Health Care Industry

There is no industry that does not benefit from the advantages of information technology (IT). Health care industry is no different from them. IT solutions are used to (1) minimize the human resource required for labor-intensive or time consuming tasks by automating them, (2) benefit from the intelligent software solutions that not just store the data in electronic format but also ease the decision making process, (3) accelerate the business processes by providing services simultaneously, and (4) provide maintainable and consistent services. Despite all of these advantages, health care industry spends only 2% of its revenues on technology, which is very limited when it is compared to other industries that spend around 10% (1). According to the report published by University of Illinois at Chicago’s Online Health Informatics Program, 50,000 health care informatics professionals will be needed in the next 5-7 years which means 21% projected increase in health care informatics jobs between 2010 and 2020 (2). The advantages of IT solutions for health care industry can be listed as:

The Ethiopian National eHealth Strategy and its Alignment with the Health Informatics Curriculum

Background : Many countries have developed eHealth strategies based on the WHO and ITU eHealth strategy toolkit. However, the success of the strategy, which appears to influence the diffusion of eHealth systems, is mainly dependent on the availability of skilled health informaticians at all levels. The purpose of this paper is therefore to review the Ethiopian eHealth strategy draft with respect to expertise requirements and to compare it with the graduate profile of the only bachelor in health informatics program in Ethiopia. Methods : A comparative analysis of the eHealth strategy with the curriculum of the bachelor in health informatics program was done. In the analysis, we identify the main focus areas of the eHealth strategy and compare its coverage in the academic and practical competency areas of the curriculum. Results : The eHealth strategy identifies five main areas of priorities for health information system implementations. They are: Health information systems, Telemedicine, mHealth, eLearning (for health workforce training) and community information systems. The curriculum contains 62 ECTS courses directly related to those areas. Additionally, the curriculum contains 89 ECTS for strategic and communication level skills, 108 ECTS for technical level skills, and 50 ECTS for monitoring and evaluation level skills. Conclusions : The eHealth strategy expertise and the curriculum are well aligned, especially regarding the technical level skills. The department and the ministry must work together so that the students get practical experiences of all the courses during their study.

Factors influencing decisions to enroll in the health informatics educational programs

The aim of this study was to identify the most important factors associated with undergraduate students' decisions to enroll in the health informatics program at Hail University in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the population of 73 students (second to fourth year; 52 females, 21 males; age range 19–25 years). A hierarchy of perceived sources of influence was identified. Counselors, teachers and other professionals, and promotional materials, including information in the media, as well as the high quality characteristics of the institution, had the strongest influence. Other students, friends and family, the academic reputation of the University and the health informatics department faculty, together with interactions in the academic environment (e.g. segregation by gender) and financial, job, career, and postgraduate opportunities, were perceived to be weaker sources of influence. The strengths of the sources of influence varied significantly with respect to the socio-demographic characteristics of the students, as well as the categories associated with the decision-making process. Strong sources of influence were particularly important for the increasing number of female students who often made the final decision to enroll. These findings will support policy and decision makers to make better plans for health informatics education by understanding the influential sources that attract students into the health informatics profession, and will also assist the health care sector’s attempts to avoid a deficiency in this rapidly expanding professional field.

The Administrative Data Research Centre Scotland: A Scoping Report on the Legal & Ethical Issues Arising from Access & Linkage of Administrative Data

This initial scoping report outlines the original research to be undertaken for the legal work package of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded Administrative Data Research Centre-Scotland (ADRC-S), by Professor Graeme Laurie and Ms Leslie Stevens based at the University of Edinburgh, School of Law and J Kenyon Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and the Law. The report provides an overview of the regulatory context in which administrative data linkages currently operate in Scotland, highlighting the crucial legal and ethical issues which arise from the current mixed legal landscape under which administrative data linkages operate. Adopting an approach that takes into account both the risks and the benefits that can be achieved through administrative data linkage research in the public interest, Laurie and Stevens argue for a principles-based approach to the governance of administrative data used for research purposes. By looking to established best practice in the field of data linkages in the health sector, and most notably the Good Governance Framework developed for the Scottish Health Informatics Programme (SHIP), the paper argues for a approach that will determine which principles can operate in a framework of robust and proportionate governance of administrative data linkages in Scotland. This is the first in a series of papers for the legal work package of the ESRC-funded ADRC-S. Subsequent papers will focus on particular research questions of the legal work package, notably the adaption of a principles based approach to the governance of administrative data; use of historical administrative data and the risks and benefits of commercial involvement in research.

Information Governance of Use of Health-Related Data in Medical Research in Scotland: Current Practices and Future Scenarios

This paper has been prepared as part of the governance work stream of the Scottish Health Informatics Programme (SHIP). It is intended as a platform for discussion and further elaboration with colleagues and those interested in issues surrounding the governance of secondary uses of health data for research. The main aims of the paper are two-fold. First, to offer an ethical, legal and social account of the current regulatory framework governing the use of person identifiable information (PII) for medical research in Scotland. It does so by both mapping out the legislation and key actors involved in governance, as well as illustrating how the framework is perceived to work in practice.A second aim of the report is to suggest a template to be used in the assessment of good governance. This template can be used both to evaluate current practices and to test any proposals for change in approaches to governance in Scotland and elsewhere with respect to uses of patient data for research purposes. It is anticipated that this template will be developed and refined with input from SHIP colleagues (particularly those at Information and Statistics Division (ISD) of NHS Scotland and those involved in the SHIP Systematic Review) as well as other stakeholders. This is the first in a series of papers in the governance stream of the SHIP programme, funded by the Welcome Trust. Future papers will address the design challenges of a new system of information governance for health-related medical research in Scotland.

Update from CDC's Public Health Surveillance & Informatics Program Office (PHSIPO)

The growing automation of healthcare information affects surveillance systems that depend on information arising from healthcare use. Changing communications technologies and styles affect population health surveys. CDC's Public Health Surveillance & Informatics Program Office (PHSIPO) manages the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, BioSense 2.0, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and serves as the 'home' at CDC for addressing cross-cutting issues in surveillance and informatics practice. This panel will discuss how PHSIPO is supporting health departments in adapting to the changing public health landscape and will provide opportunities to hear from audience members.

IMIA Accreditation of Health Informatics Programs

ObjectivesHealth informatics programs usually are evaluated by national accreditation committees. Not always are the members of these committees well informed about the international level of (education in) health informatics. Therefore, when a program is accredited by a national accreditation committee, this does not always mean that the program is of an international level. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has expertise in the field of education. The IMIA Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics guide curricula development. The goal of this article is to show that IMIA can also play the role of accreditation agency and to present the IMIA accreditation protocol and experiences obtained with it.MethodsThe accreditation procedure used in the Netherlands and Belgium was taken as a template for the design of the IMIA accreditation protocol. In a trial period of one and a half year the protocol is tested out on six health informatics programs.ResultsAn accreditation protocol was designed. For judging the curriculum of a program the IMIA Recommendations are used. The institution has to write a self-assessment report and a site visit committee visits the program and judges its quality, supported by the self-assessment report and discussions with all stakeholders of the program.ConclusionsAfter having visited three programs it appears that the IMIA accreditation procedure works well. Only a few changes had to be introduced. Writing the self-assessment report already appears to be beneficial for the management of the program to obtain a better insight in the quality of their program.

Introduction to the International Medical Informatics Association

Introduction to the International Medical Informatics Association

IMIA Accreditation of Health Informatics Programs

To develop a procedure for accrediting health informatics programs. Development of a procedure for accreditation. Test of the accreditation procedure via a trial including four or five health informatics programs. A site visit committee consisting of three members evaluates the program based on a self-assessment report written by the program and the experiences and observations of the site visit committee during the site visit. A procedure for accreditation has been developed. The instructions for health informatics programs have been written and a checklist for the site visit committee members is available. In total six subjects are considered, each one consisting of one or more facets. Each facet is judged using its corresponding criterion. Five health informatics programs volunteered. One health informatics program in Finland has already been visited and a report has been produced by the site visit committee. The next site visits are in June and July 2012. The site visit in Finland showed that English summaries of master theses are not enough to get a first impression of the methods used in the thesis. A table of contents is also needed. This information then can be used to select theses written in a language other than English for discussion. The accreditation procedure document with instructions about writing the self-assessment report was very well structured and the instructions were clear according to the Finnish program. The site visit team could work well with the checklist. Self-assessment report model was very well structured and the instructions were clear.

The Centers of Excellence in Public Health Informatics: Improving Public Health through Innovation, Collaboration, Dissemination, and Translation

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Centers of Excellence in Public Health Informatics (CoE) program was established to advance the research and practice of public health informatics through several collaborative efforts (1). The CoE program supports the development, translation, and dissemination of informatics knowledge; andprovides expertise to public health professionals to maximize the potential of information systems to improve the health of the nation. The Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services (OSELS) funds the Centersusing a Program Project Grant (P01) with each Center leading two major research projects in collaboration with local public health partners (2). Five original Centers were funded in 2005 to serve as innovative incubators for transformational public health informatics research. A new competitive announcement was released in 2009 which resulted in awards to the four current Centers: Harvard Pilgrim Children’s Hospital Boston Center of Excellence, Rocky Mountain Center for Translational Research in Public Health Informatics, Indiana University Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics, and University of Pittsburgh Center for Advanced Studies of Informatics in Public Health. The current Centersconduct research that leverages and builds upon the developmental accomplishments achieved by the original Centers and supports CDC’s goals and strategic priorities. The Centers’ researchstrengthens surveillance and epidemiologyat CDC while supporting state,tribal, and local health departmentsto improve the public’s health (3). The Centers activities address many of the critical priorities that CDC has determined to have large scale impact on health with known and effective strategies to include obesity, healthcare-associated infections and foodborne diseases (4). This Special Issue includes two articles from each of the four Centers that highlight their recent contributions to the field of public health informatics.

O2-5.2 Public responses to the Scottish health informatics programme: preferences and concerns around the use of personal medical records in research

The Scottish Health Informatics Programme is an ambitious, Scotland-wide research platform for the collation, management, dissemination and analysis of electronic patient records. It is creating a research portal for electronic patient records held by NHS Scotland that will provide rapid, secure access to the type of data required by population health scientists. However, such data linkage and subsequent use raise a range of social and ethical issues. A concurrent programme of public engagement is exploring opinions and concerns in order to develop a transparent, publicly acceptable approach to Scottish Health Informatics Programme9s work. The first phase involved a series of 10 focus groups across Scotland with a diversity of participants. These data have been analysed qualitatively and inductively. Key concerns relate to security of databases; what data will be used for and the extent to which patients can control the use of their data. A central theme throughout discussions was trust: participants were less concerned about uses of their data when they trusted the individual/organisation using it. A further important finding was that participants were very troubled about linking health data with non-health data for research purposes. These findings have important implications for the governance of health related data and research. They demonstrate the importance of engaging with public views at every stage of a programme9s development if it is to achieve high levels of trust and transparency.

From the Special Issue Editors’ Desk

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsDarshana SederaDarshana Sedera is a senior lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. He received his doctor of philosophy for the dissertation titled "Enterprise Systems success measurement model" from QUT. His research interests include: Enterprise Systems Lifecycle Management, Information Systems evaluations and success, and Knowledge Management. He has authored / co-authored over 60 refereed publications in reputed journal and conferences, including the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems and several papers at the International Conference on Information Systems.Mary SumnerMary Sumner is Professor of Computer Management and Information Systems, School of Business, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Prior to that, she was on the faculty of New York University. She has been responsible for building the undergraduate and graduate programs in CMIS and has taught for 28 years in the areas of management of information technology, information systems design, project management, software systems design, and enterprise systems design. Dr. Sumner served as chief information officer for academic affairs and was responsible for organizing and managing information services to support the quality and effectiveness of academic programs at the university. She organizes business/university partnerships and executive programs in leadership, project management, and health informatics. She has taught ERP systems design at the Norwegian School of Logistics over the past five years, and teaches executive MBA courses in Hong Kong and Singapore.

A curricula-based comparison of biomedical and health informatics programs in the USA

A curricula-based comparison of biomedical and health informatics programs in the USA

An example of the use of Public Health Grid (PHGrid) technology during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic

Historically, public health surveillance systems in the USA have been designed as registries targeting specific public health issues that collect data from certain population groups to answer particular questions. This resulted in disparate public health information systems that can rarely address new needs without extensive redesign. Such a design limits the ability of public health professionals to address emerging public health threats when data need to be collected from different areas of public health practice; the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic posed such a challenge. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office (CDC/PHITPO) and its partners explored a decentralised information architecture using the Public Health Grid (PHGrid). Through the exploration of PHGrid capabilities, CDC/PHITPO developed a pilot project to demonstrate a method for secure and timely data exchange using simulated data in aggregate format.

Commentary: The Time Is Now: Academia and Opportunities in Health Informatics and E-Health

Recent health care reform and policy initiatives have had a focus on health information technology (HIT). At the same time, academic centers are expanding biomedical informatics programs. Yet, it is disheartening that much of the direction and dialogue are coming from those with business, political, or advocacy interests, while those in academia who might provide valuable insights are not as visible within this debate. Some major academic health centers have strong health or biomedical informatics programs that incorporate community-academia partnerships. So why aren't more academic health care faculty members, especially at public universities, involved in state or national HIT strategic policy initiatives or governance bodies? Plausible reasons are posited, and examples for greater interdisciplinary faculty member involvement at the local/state or regional levels are suggested.

Survey of biomedical and health care informatics programs in the United States

Informatics, in the classic definition, is a science that studies “the representation, processing, and communication of information in natural and artificial systems” [1] or, more pragmatically, “a discipline focused on the acquisition, storage, and use of information in a specific setting or domain” [2], such as health care or biomedical sciences. Informatics is also increasingly described as a profession that is still at the early stages of development [3]. There is continuing self-identification of different subfields of informatics, particularly those related to biomedicine and health care, both as scientific disciplines and as professions. One aspect of defining a profession or a subspecialty within it is establishing a set of agreed upon competencies and corresponding educational curricula [3]. Yet, while the number of programs “with ‘informatics’ in their names” is growing, these programs vary substantially in level and scope [4]. Our survey attempts to provide a snapshot of the current picture of informatics training programs related to biomedicine and health care in the United States. The purpose of the survey is twofold. First, the survey is intended as a resource for students, educators, and informatics professionals. Second, through compiling detailed information about existing educational opportunities, we attempt to contribute to the definitions of various informatics subspecialties. This is the fifth generation of surveys of informatics programs conducted by our research group; previous surveys were published online [5]. The first three surveys, carried out annually in 2002–2004, focused only on bioinformatics programs. In more recent iterations (2006 and current, 2008, versions), we moved to a biannual schedule, but broadened the survey scope to encompass medical, health, nursing, dental, and other related informatics programs. In the latest survey presented in this paper, we have also significantly expanded the information categories used to describe each program and paid special attention to grouping the program listings to better correspond to the various informatics subdisciplines. A number of web resources provide similar information, such as the International Society for Computational Biology's listing of degree and certificate programs [6] or the American Medical Informatics Association's list of training programs [7]. Our survey differs from such resources in several important ways: It cuts across the diversity of biomedical and health informatics subspecialties; it provides specific and detailed information for each program; and it presents the information in a way that facilitates comparison of programs within and between subspecialties.

A Toolkit For E-Health Partnerships In Low-Income Nations

Collecting, managing, and communicating information is a critical part of delivering high-quality, efficient health care. Low-income countries often lack the information technology that is taking root in developed countries to manage health data and work toward evidence-based practice and culture. Partnerships between academic and government institutions in high- and low-income countries can help establish health informatics programs. These programs, in turn, can capture and manage data that are useful to all parties. Several partnerships among academic institutions and public and private organizations, in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, Haiti, and Peru, are leading the way.

On IMIA‘s International Activities in Health and Biomedical Informatics Education

Education has long been, and continues to be, one of the major thematic areas of the activities of IMIA, the International Medical Informatics Association. To report on IMIA's past activities and to discuss possible future perspectives on IMIA's role on biomedical and health informatics education. Summarizing past activities by searching in reports and publications. Making suggestions for wider discussion on possible future activities. Since its inception, IMIA has been active in the field of education, mainly through its working group on education. Among other activities, nine working conferences have been held, many of which have resulted in publications as outcomes, which have helped to exchange knowledge on the development of high-quality health and biomedical informatics education. Recommendations on education in health and medical informatics were endorsed by IMIA in 1999, and a revised version is currently in preparation. IMIA should continue to stimulate the exchange of knowledge on a range of aspects of health and biomedical informatics education in the countries and regions of the world, with IMIA's academic institutional members playing an increasing role. Establishing procedures for the international accreditation of high-level programs in health and biomedical informatics through IMIA is one of several areas that need to be discussed as IMIA plans and develops its future activities.

Supporting the Saudi e-health initiative: the Master of Health Informatics programme at KSAU-HS

The health sector in Saudi Arabia has made significant progress in recent decades with some hospitals receiving international recognition. However, this has not been accompanied by advancements in the field of health informatics, which are necessary for hospitals to achieve certain objectives such as enhancing the quality of health care and reducing the time and cost of health care delivery. In this paper we describe the status of e-health in Saudi Arabia, along with some of the national e-health initiatives such the establishment of a new Master of Health Informatics degree programme and the Saudi Association for Health Informatics. A proposal for an e-health plan in Saudi Arabia is also discussed.