Leveraging Information Technology Research Articles

Leveraging information technology to bridge the health workforce gap.

The International Telecommunication Union estimates that, in only four years (2007–2011), mobile broadband subscriptions in the developing world increased by more than tenfold: from 43 million to 458 million. Mobile de-vices and internet access are becoming increasingly necessary professional tools for health-care workers at all levels in developing countries. New fibre and wireless infrastructure, as well as the rapid growth of computer processing power, provide an unprecedented op-portunity to scale up health worker training and improve its quality, as well as to optimize health service delivery and strengthen health systems.Over the past 20 years, learning management systems have contributed greatly to the tremendous expansion of e-learning. The past five years have also seen an increase in massive open online courses. eHealth technologies, including electronic medical records, laboratory and pharmacy information systems, along with disease surveil-lance and supply chain information systems, are transforming health care. Mobile health (mHealth), which is the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices, extends these systems to the most remote and inaccessible parts of the developing world. In addition, the same mobile devices used to optimize communica-tion and support front-line health-care workers can be used to deploy multi-media training programmes and clini -cal decision support tools. The social media and the development of com-munities of practice have yet to be fully mobilized to support health workforce capacity building. The use of the social media by health workers has several potential benefits. Some examples are crowdsourcing of educational content, translations and localization (i.e. ad-aptation of the content to a particular region), peer-to-peer learning, joint problem solving and reflective prac-tice. In addition, ICTs can strengthen communication between providers and patients, increase community support for health worker capacity building and heighten the demand for high-quality clinical services.E-learning tools can support cur-riculum development and course sched -uling and management in ways that are conducive to blended learning approaches and that take advantage of multiple learning environments. Such tools can also be linked with national health professional registration and licensure systems, as well as with health workforce planning, management and in-service training systems, to provide information and support to the health workforce throughout the health worker lifecycle. Following pre-service train-ing, ICTs can be used to optimize the work of a health-care provider – the use of electronic health records, clinical decision-making, supply chain manage -ment and service quality control are examples – and to facilitate mHealth communications, continuing education and the establishment of professional social networks.Training methods based on video conferencing, webcasting, recording, localization and playback of training can enable global access to the very best educators and are more cost-effective than standard face-to-face educational programmes. Interactive content pro-grammes that incorporate gaming and adaptive learning tools can also be used.

Academic Medicine Change Management

Stony Brook University School of Medicine (SBU SOM) used a Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) site visit to design a change management approach that engaged students, revitalized faculty, and enabled significant, positive institutional transformation while flexibly responding to concurrent leadership transitions. This "from-the-trenches" description of novel LCME site-visit-related processes may provide an educational program quality improvement template for other U.S. medical schools. The SBU SOM site visit processes were proactively organized within five phases: (1) planning (4 months), (2) data gathering (12 months), (3) documentation (6 months), (4) visit readiness (2 months), and (5) visit follow-up (16 months). The authors explain the key activities associated with each phase.The SBU SOM internal leadership team designed new LCME-driven educational performance reports to identify challenging aspects of the educational program (e.g., timeliness of grades submitted, midcourse feedback completeness, clerkship grading variability across affiliate sites, learning environment or student mistreatment incidents). This LCME process increased institutional awareness, identified the school's LCME vulnerabilities, organized corrective actions, engaged key stakeholders in communication, ensured leadership buy-in, and monitored successes. The authors' strategies for success included establishing a strong internal LCME leadership team, proactively setting deadlines for all phases of the LCME process, assessing and communicating vulnerabilities and action plans, building multidisciplinary working groups, leveraging information technology, educating key stakeholders through meetings, retreats, and consultants, and conducting a mock site visit. The urgency associated with an impending high-stakes LCME site visit can facilitate positive, local, educational program quality improvement.

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Communication Network Design: Balancing Modularity and Mixing via Optimal Graph Spectra

By leveraging information technologies, organizations now have the ability to design their communication networks and crowdsourcing platforms to pursue various performance goals, but existing research on network design does not account for the specific features of social networks, such as the notion of teams. We fill this gap by demonstrating how desirable aspects of organizational structure can be mapped parsimoniously onto the spectrum of the graph Laplacian allowing the specification of structural objectives and build on recent advances in non-convex programming to optimize them. This design framework is general, but we focus here on the problem of creating graphs that balance high modularity and low mixing time, and show how liaisons rather than brokers maximize this objective.

Reliable Individualized Monitoring Improves Cholesterol Control in Kidney Transplant Recipients

To develop and evaluate a system for reliable and efficient individualized risk-based monitoring of cholesterol and 11 other tests after kidney transplantation in children. We identified system components that drive reliable individualized monitoring and used quality improvement methods to develop and implement interventions, including (1) monitoring schedules individualized by dyslipidemia risk assigned to each patient, (2) automated previsit decision support from our electronic medical record, (3) standardized work flow and responsibility, and (4) automated forwarding of results to providers. We measured the proportion of patients due for cholesterol testing who had it performed within 1 week of their clinic visit and the proportion of patients in our population who achieved low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol control at baseline and for 2 years after improved monitoring. The proportion of visits in which cholesterol monitoring was completed when indicated improved from 80% to 98% within 8 months and was sustained for more than 1 year. The number of patients with controlled LDL (<130 mg/dL, 3.3 mmol/L) improved from 44 (71%) of 62 at the start of our project to 58 (94%) of 62 (P = .002) at an average follow-up of 24 months. Using quality improvement and health information technology, we achieved sustained, reliable and efficient personalized monitoring of cholesterol and 11 other tests. This approach enabled substantial improvement in LDL cholesterol control. Structured methods of system redesign that leverage information technology systems hold promise for rapidly achieving reliable individualized care in other settings.

Partners HealthCare Center for Connected Health

This article reviews the history, current status, and future plans of the Partners HealthCare Center for Connected Health (the Center). Established in 1995 by Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals, the Center develops strategies to move healthcare from the hospital and doctor's office into the day-to-day lives of patients. It leverages information technology to help manage chronic conditions, maintain health and wellness, and improve adherence to prescribed regimen, patient engagement, and clinical outcomes. Since inception, it has served over 30,000 patients. The Center's core functions include videoconference-based real-time virtual visits, home vital sign monitoring, store-and-forward online consultations, social media, mobile technology, and other novel methods of providing care and enabling health and wellness remotely and independently of traditional time and geographic constraints. It offers a wide range of services, programs, and research activities. The Center comprises over 40 professionals with various technical and professional skills. Internally within Partners HealthCare, the role of the Center is to collaborate, guide, advise, and support the experimentation with and the deployment and growth of connected health technologies, programs, and services. Annually, the Center engages in a deliberative planning process to guide its annual research and operational agenda. The Center enjoys a diversified revenue stream. Funding sources include institutional operating budget/research funds from Partners HealthCare, public and private competitive grants and contracts, philanthropic contributions, ad hoc funding arrangements, and longer-term contractual arrangements with third parties.

Need and Potential Use of Information Technology for Case Manager–Physician Communication in Home Care

Case management has become a popular model for providing home care services to nursing home-eligible older adults. To maximize collaborative decision making and patient outcomes, members of the case management team must engage in ongoing, open communication. However, little is known about the quality of communication between home care case managers and their clients’ physicians. This study examined geriatric home care case managers’ perceptions of their communication with their clients’ physicians. Participating case managers were employed at two large home care agencies located in the South Florida region. The findings suggest that communication between home care case managers and physicians is limited and inefficient. Implication for policy and practice are provided. Finally, we propose ways to leverage Information Technology to bridge this communication gap.

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Relationships between Project Complexity and Communication

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry delivers increasingly complex projects but struggles to leverage information technology to facilitate communication on these projects. To begin to address this challenge, the AEC project information management research field needs methods to assess communication, complexity, and their relationships. First, the authors apply complexity and virtual design and construction research to contribute a method for assessing product, organization, and process (POP) complexity. Second, through project team interviews, the authors contribute a communication assessment method to assess collaboration within projects, sharing of information between projects, and understanding of information generated across the firm or industry. Applying the two assessment methods to case studies, the authors validate the applicability of the methods to the AEC industry and propose a trend between increased POP complexity and increased communication challenges. The two assessment methods provide the opportunity for teams to learn from and improve upon their communication strategies on the basis of project complexity. By increasing the awareness of the relationship between complexity and communication, this paper aims to motivate and provide foundation for the development of more effective and efficient communication tools.

The Impact of Introducing Factor in the ERP Systems on Management Performance-Mediating Effects of Internal Performance

The rapid development of information technology and emergence of the internet have created a borderless business environment and intensified market competition. Riding on the globalization trend, companies have been gradually leveraging information technology in order to shorten their manufacturing processes, enhance productivity with lower costs and prompt delivery to meet the customers' needs. To achieve these targets and maintain competitive advantage, companies have been introducing enterprise resource planning (ERP). This study distributed and collects the questionnaire which is suitable for the research goals during 25 days from march 12th, 2012, to April 6th, 2012. Totally 226 employees answer the questionnaires by the method of direct visiting interview. The results are as follows; In the relationship between management performance and ERP-introducing factors, the moderating effect of internal performance has significant influence by statistical analysis. Our findings suggest that a better understanding of the contribution of ERP systems to business performance and introducing ERP system.

Corporate Social Responsibility Communication through Websites: Analysis of Indian and Multinational Companies

The purpose of this study was to analyse the quality and quantity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication made through company's website by the Indian and the multinational companies (MNCs) operating in the Information and Technology (IT) sector in India. Communication features pertaining to location, volume and type of CSR information were analysed. Parameters were developed to understand how scannable, readable and accessible the CSR information posted on the websites was. Both the Indian and the MNCs are not leveraging information technology optimally for the purpose of communicating CSR. The MNCs present CSR information more prominently and make better use of the multimedia technology. The study is limited to the top 100 companies operating in the IT sector in India in the year 2009. The results help us understand whether the companies operating in the IT sector are leveraging the technology advantage for the purpose of corporate communication or not.

Healthy People 2020

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched Healthy People 2020 in December 2010, announcing the new 10-year goals and objectives for health promotion and disease prevention. Healthy People is designed to improve the quality of the nation’s health and provide a framework for public health prevention priorities and actions. A newly redesigned website ( http://www.healthypeople.gov ) allows users to tailor information to individual or community needs and to explore evidence-based resources. A major principle states that national objectives and monitoring progress are critical factors in motivating action. An extensive feedback process was initiated by the Department of Health and Human Services to develop comprehensive objectives; previous topic areas were carried forward, and new areas were identified. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park stated, “This milestone in disease prevention and health promotion creates an opportunity to leverage information technology to make Healthy People come alive for all Americans in their communities and workplaces” (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011). Healthy People 2020 includes initiatives to hearing and communication disorders which are considered important to the overall well being of the population.

Development of Holistic Framework Incorporating Collaboration, Supply-Demand Synchronization, Traceability and Vertical Integration in Agri-Food Supply Chain

Successful implementation of food supply chains in improving the productivity and operational efficiency by some companies made many other firms and researchers courteous about this fast developing field. For successful strategies, organizations in agri-food business are aiming to bring all its stakeholders in close cooperation. The agri-food supply chain aims at optimal warehousing and location design, supply-demand synchronization, checking price variations and ultimately minimizing waste and improving productivity at every stage leveraging Information Technology (IT). This research reviews the supply chain status in agri-food sector, categorizes available literature, assesses the influential articles, and proposes the holistic framework in agri-food supply chain. From the literature review, it is observed that the research articles have addressed agri-food supply chain up to a certain point and confined to the apt ideas of supply projections, demand projections, supply-demand disparity, traceability, collaborations etc. There is a need for extensive research to reconsider warehouse and location design, supply-demand projections and gap analysis, transshipment strategies and traceability in an integrated manner. The present study proposes holistic framework addressing the issues of supply-demand synchronization, warehouse design, transportation optimization, traceability, vertical integration and farmer’s credit facility.

Inter-organisational alignment to enhance information technology (IT) driven services innovation in a supply chain: the case of radio frequency identification (RFID)

Firms cannot be competitive if their information systems (ISs) and business strategies are not aligned. The strategic alignment model (SAM) developed by Henderson and Venkatraman (Strategic alignment: leveraging information technology (IT) for transforming organizations. IBM Systems Journal, 38 (2/3), 472–484.) considers strategic alignment as a stand-alone challenge between a company and its IS. This concern of alignment has not been empirically extended to the inter-organisational level. This research raises the question of inter-organisational alignment and follows how companies, embedded in a supply chain (SC), adapt their ISs and organisations while implementing IT-driven innovation. We conducted a case study on a radio frequency identification (RFID) project in a jewellery SC. This SC is made of a middle-sized retailer (MSR), composed of headquarters and 80 stores, and one single supplier, a logistic service provider (LSP). By combining an RFID project framework and the SAM, this study provides some answers to the dynamics of alignment and highlights various sequences according to the different phases of the project. Through a single case study, this article finally proposes to extend the alignment perspectives of the SAM to the inter-organisational level.

Plan for Quality to Improve Patient Safety at the Point of Care

The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) much publicized report in “To Err is Human” (2000, National Academy Press) stated that as many as 98 000 hospitalized patients in the U.S. die each year due to preventable medical errors. This revelation about medical error and patient safety focused the public and the medical community's attention on errors in healthcare delivery including laboratory and point-of-care-testing (POCT). Errors introduced anywhere in the POCT process clearly can impact quality and place patient's safety at risk. While POCT performed by or near the patient reduces the potential of some errors, the process presents many challenges to quality with its multiple tests sites, test menus, testing devices and non-laboratory analysts, who often have little understanding of quality testing. Incoherent or no regulations and the rapid availability of test results for immediate clinical intervention can further amplify errors. System planning and management of the entire POCT process are essential to reduce errors and improve quality and patient safety.

Empirical study on influence of critical success factors on ERP knowledge management on management performance in high-tech industries in Taiwan

The rapid development of information technology and the emergence of the Internet have created a borderless business environment and intensified market competition. Riding on the globalization trend, high-tech companies have been gradually leveraging information technology in order to shorten their manufacturing processes, enhance productivity with lower costs and prompt delivery to meet the customers’ needs. To achieve these targets and maintain competitive advantages, companies have been introducing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and knowledge management (KM). This paper finds, via literature review, that most scholars focus only on the deployment of ERP systems and improvement of flows. Few have introduced the KM concept into ERP systems. This paper collated the literature relevant to ERP and KM and integrates the findings to introduce the ERP KM concept. The most important thing is to establish a detailed introduction plan and a prior understanding of the critical success factors (CSFs) for ERP KM introduction. This paper summarizes the CSFs for ERP KM introduction via literature review and examines the influence of these CSFs on management performance. A questionnaire survey is conducted to collect the relevant data and SPSS 10.0 (statistics software) is run for statistical and multiple regression analyses. Among these CSFs, support from senior managers, corporate vision, reengineering of corporate flows and project management, selection of appropriate consulting firms and software suppliers, the identification of suitable employees to take part in ERP introduction and the proper training and education programs have positive influences on management performance. In the multiple regression analysis, all of the individual constructs are positively and significantly correlated. The explanatory power of individual variables is high. It is hoped that the research finding can serve as a reference for ERP KM introduction to corporations.

Leveraging Information Technology for Point-of-Care Testing at University of Texas Medical Branch Health Care System

Leveraging Information Technology for Point-of-Care Testing at University of Texas Medical Branch Health Care System

Effectiveness of Security Control Risk Assessments for Enterprises: Assess on the Business Perspective of Security Risks

ABSTRACT Today's businesses being IT enabled, the complexity of risks affecting the business has increased manifold and the need to gauge the Information Technology risks acting on the business operations has become paramount. The business managers who run business operations need to operate securely and seamlessly leveraging Information Technology and ability to recover and resume the business without any loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability of business information/data in any event of a security incident. There is a need to quantify the impact of the IT security risk on the critical business processes, and provide the business-level insight at the management level. It is critical to classifying the Risk Ratings as per the impact on the business operations. This approach allows the organizations to understand and prioritize the security risk management activities that make the most sense for their organization to secure the business operations instead of trying to protect against every conceivable threat.

Leveraging Information Technology to Drive Improvement in Patient Satisfaction

A healthcare organization's commitment to quality and the patient experience requires senior leader involvement in improvement strategies, and accountability for goals. Further, improvement strategies are most effective when driven by data, and in the world of patient satisfaction, evidence is growing that nurse leader rounding and discharge calls are strategic tactics that can improve patient satisfaction. This article describes how The Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) leveraged health information technology (IT) to apply a data-driven strategy execution to improve the patient experience. Specifically, two IT-driven approaches were used: (1) business intelligence reporting tools were used to create a meaningful reporting system including dashboards, scorecards, and tracking reports and (2) an improvement plan was implemented that focused on two high-impact tactics and data to hardwire accountability. Targeted information from the IT systems enabled clinicians and administrators to execute these strategic tactics, and senior leaders to monitor achievement of strategic goals. As a result, OSUMC's inpatient satisfaction scores on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey improved from 56% nines and tens in 2006 to 71% in 2009.

President's page

Over the course of this year's activities I have had several opportunities to revisit fundamental themes that recur in all professional societies. What is the American Society for Information Science and Technology? Whom does it serve? What problems does it address? Work this year by the publications, membership and Annual Meeting program committees, as well as discussions in my presidential conference calls and at the various meetings, have each given rise to fundamental questions about mission, focus and participation. A look at the “About ASIS&T” page (http://asist.org/about.html) on the ASIS&T website highlights our 73-year history as a society devoted to improving information access. My sense of what ASIS&T is today is somewhat broader in that for me, our mission is to study information — its genesis, propagation, use and effects over time. We tend to be particularly interested in information's effects on people and institutions and in the technologies and techniques associated with it. I claim that ASIS&T is the world's leading society in information science and a home for information science research and the practices that stem from research findings. As a professional society, we aim to promote the information professions through evidence-based research and innovative development. Thus, as researchers, we investigate problems that arise in any stages of the entire information life cycle; and as practitioners, we aim to apply the results of systematic investigations to invent effective and efficient solutions to those information problems. Some ASIS&T members focus more on research and some on practice, but all ASIS&T members are made of the same metal when it comes to understanding and solving information problems. As a result of the recent meeting of the program committee for the upcoming Annual Meeting, I am optimistic that we can forge a program that is well struck on both sides of this coin. A second musing about the nature of ASIS&T arose as I participated in the LIDA conference in Zadar, Croatia, in May. I was struck by the level of excitement and engagement shown by European ASIS&T members. There was a doctoral forum run by the European ASIS&T Student Chapter (well organized by doctoral student Cathal Hoare from University College Cork, Ireland) that highlighted research done in several Eastern European universities. I hope that there will be a follow-up doctoral forum next year. Students and faculty outside of North America recognize ASIS&T as the leading information science society and aspire to participate actively. Additionally, as I read JASIST, I am struck by the international scope of coverage and authorship. Papers from non-North American authors dominate many issues of JASIST. For example the May and June 2010 issues have 30 full papers, only 13 of which are from authors from North American affiliations (and one of these includes an author from Asia). Looking back at May and June issues from 1996 there were nine full papers, four from North America and five from other parts of the world. If we go back another 20 years to the March-April and May-June 1976 issues we find eight of 10 papers from authors with North American affiliations, but two that are not. This quick perusal of the collection on my shelf (yes, paper), demonstrates the long-standing globalization of our primary research publication. These observations of meetings and of our publications validate how international ASIS&T is in fact, if not in name. Indeed, ASIS&T is increasingly international in scope and participation. As the leading information science society, we attract a broad range of participants from around the world and have an obligation to advance research and practice related to information science globally. As we head toward our 75th anniversary (2012) it is important that we reflect on our mission as the leading society in information science to balance discovery and application and leverage information technologies to expand global participation in ASIS&T.