Limited Information Technology Research Articles

Integration of Information Technology in Guidance and Counseling Management in Schools: Challenges and Implementation Strategies

The integration of information technology (IT) in school education has a significant impact on teacher professionalism and educational management, including Guidance and Counseling services. This study explores how IT improves guidance and counseling management in schools by improving teacher empowerment, administrative efficiency, and student learning experiences. Through a literature perspective, data from various research sources is analyzed to assess the current state and challenges of using technology in counseling services. Although technology helps in organizing student data, assessment environments, and offering personalized services, challenges such as limited IT knowledge among counselors, lack of resources, and concerns about privacy and consent to change hinder its full implementation. This research emphasizes that effective management of guidance and counseling services, incorporating IT, is critical to meeting students' social, emotional and academic needs. The study concludes that, despite these challenges, strategic use of IT can transform guidance and counseling practices, improving student development and academic success.

Challenges to implementing electronic trial data collection in primary care: a qualitative study

BackgroundWithin-consultation recruitment to primary care trials is challenging. Ensuring procedures are efficient and self-explanatory is the key to optimising recruitment. Trial recruitment software that integrates with the electronic health record to support and partially automate procedures is becoming more common. If it works well, such software can support greater participation and more efficient trial designs. An innovative electronic trial recruitment and outcomes software was designed to support recruitment to the Runny Ear randomised controlled trial, comparing topical, oral and delayed antibiotic treatment for acute otitis media with discharge in children. A qualitative evaluation investigated the views and experiences of primary care staff using this trial software.MethodsStaff were purposively sampled in relation to site, role and whether the practice successfully recruited patients. In-depth interviews were conducted using a flexible topic guide, audio recorded and transcribed. Data were analysed thematically.ResultsSixteen staff were interviewed, including GPs, practice managers, information technology (IT) leads and research staff. GPs wanted trial software that automatically captures patient data. However, the experience of getting the software to work within the limited and complex IT infrastructure of primary care was frustrating and time consuming. Installation was reliant on practice level IT expertise, which varied between practices. Although most had external IT support, this rarely included supported for research IT. Arrangements for approving new software varied across practices and often, but not always, required authorisation from Clinical Commissioning Groups.ConclusionsPrimary care IT systems are not solely under the control of individual practices or CCGs or the National Health Service. Rather they are part of a complex system that spans all three and is influenced by semi-autonomous stakeholders operating at different levels. This led to time consuming and sometimes insurmountable barriers to installation at the practice level. These need to be addressed if software supporting efficient research in primary care is to become a reality.

Decision aids and health information technology: One size does not fit all.

74 Background: Nearly 3 million cancer survivors in the US reside in rural areas. Existing survivorship care models were developed mainly at large academic centers, and thus require adaption to meet the challenging needs of the rural community. Rural cancer survivors (RCS) face issues with coordination of care, decision-making, access to specialty services, supportive care resources, and time and resources required for travel. RCS are at greater risk for social isolation and inadequate emotional support. To address these challenges, many studies propose information technology (IT), mobile, and video solutions. We assessed the potential of online and mobile video technology applications to reduce barriers to survivorship care for RCS, families, and caregivers. Methods: We conducted 2 in-person focus groups with rural care managers, providers, and public health professionals, and one virtual cross-disciplinary focus group of patients, caregivers, and provider stakeholders to evaluate acceptability of video modules. Using a Community-Based Participatory Research approach, we worked with community partners to design and develop materials that adequately addressed their needs. Results: Focus group results indicate that video modules added little value for RCS due to sporadic internet access, limited patient IT literacy, vision and memory problems, and patient difficulty interpreting information. Therefore, we designed and piloted a paper RCS Checklist to be taken to appointments, available in waiting areas or through care managers, and to serve as a guide for shared patient-provider decision-making. The resulting checklist includes evidence-based information about survivorship care goals and approaches, care coordination strategies, information about local cancer supportive services, health insurance reimbursement, state disability policies, psychosocial support, and stress-reduction tips. Conclusions: In some special patient populations like RCS, use of health IT for patient empowerment and care coordination may be a poor choice. Engaging relevant stakeholders in the development of location-specific communication and decision aid materials is paramount to successful engagement of patients and caregivers.

Subject-based retrieval of scientific documents, case study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach for retrieving a set of scientific articles in the field of Information Technology (IT) from a scientific database such as Web of Science (WoS), to apply scientometrics indices and compare them with other fields.Design/methodology/approachThe authors propose to apply a statistical classification-based approach for extracting IT-related articles. In this approach, first, a probabilistic model is introduced to model the subject IT, using keyphrase extraction techniques. Then, they retrieve IT-related articles from all Iranian papers in WoS, based on a Bayesian classification scheme. Based on the probabilistic IT model, they assign an IT membership probability for each article in the database, and then they retrieve the articles with highest probabilities.FindingsThe authors have extracted a set of IT keyphrases, with 1,497 terms through the keyphrase extraction process, for the probabilistic model. They have evaluated the proposed retrieval approach with two approaches: the query-based approach in which the articles are retrieved from WoS using a set of queries composed of limited IT keywords, and the research area-based approach which is based on retrieving the articles using WoS categorizations and research areas. The evaluation and comparison results show that the proposed approach is able to generate more accurate results while retrieving more articles related to IT.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this research is limited to the IT subject, it can be generalized for any subject as well. However, for multidisciplinary topics such as IT, special attention should be given to the keyphrase extraction phase. In this research, bigram model is used; however, one can extend it to tri-gram as well.Originality/valueThis paper introduces an integrated approach for retrieving IT-related documents from a collection of scientific documents. The approach has two main phases: building a model for representing topic IT, and retrieving documents based on the model. The model, based on a set of keyphrases, extracted from a collection of IT articles. However, the extraction technique does not rely on Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency, since almost all of the articles in the collection share a set of same keyphrases. In addition, a probabilistic membership score is defined to retrieve the IT articles from a collection of scientific articles.

Achieving and sustaining automated health data linkages for learning systems: barriers and solutions.

Introduction:Delivering more appropriate, safer, and highly effective health care is the goal of a learning health care system. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) funded enhanced registry projects: (1) to create and analyze valid data for comparative effectiveness research (CER); and (2) to enhance the ability to monitor and advance clinical quality improvement (QI). This case report describes barriers and solutions from one state-wide enhanced registry project.Methods:The Comparative Effectiveness Research and Translation Network (CERTAIN) deployed the commercially available Amalga Unified Intelligence System™ (Amalga) as a central data repository to enhance an existing QI registry (the Automation Project). An eight-step implementation process included hospital recruitment, technical electronic health record (EHR) review, hospital-specific interface planning, data ingestion, and validation. Data ownership and security protocols were established, along with formal methods to separate data management for QI purposes and research purposes. Sustainability would come from lowered chart review costs and the hospital’s desire to invest in the infrastructure after trying it.Findings:CERTAIN approached 19 hospitals in Washington State operating within 12 unaffiliated health care systems for the Automation Project. Five of the 19 completed all implementation steps. Four hospitals did not participate due to lack of perceived institutional value. Ten hospitals did not participate because their information technology (IT) departments were oversubscribed (e.g., too busy with Meaningful Use upgrades). One organization representing 22 additional hospitals expressed interest, but was unable to overcome data governance barriers in time. Questions about data use for QI versus research were resolved in a widely adopted project framework. Hospitals restricted data delivery to a subset of patients, introducing substantial technical challenges. Overcoming challenges of idiosyncratic EHR implementations required each hospital to devote more IT resources than were predicted. Cost savings did not meet projections because of the increased IT resource requirements and a different source of lowered chart review costs.Discussion:CERTAIN succeeded in recruiting unaffiliated hospitals into the Automation Project to create an enhanced registry to achieve AHRQ goals. This case report describes several distinct barriers to central data aggregation for QI and CER across unaffiliated hospitals: (1) competition for limited on-site IT expertise, (2) concerns about data use for QI versus research, (3) restrictions on data automation to a defined subset of patients, and (4) unpredictable resource needs because of idiosyncrasies among unaffiliated hospitals in how EHR data are coded, stored, and made available for transmission—even between hospitals using the same vendor’s EHR. Therefore, even a fully optimized automation infrastructure would still not achieve complete automation. The Automation Project was unable to align sufficiently with internal hospital objectives, so it could not show a compelling case for sustainability.

New Models for Medical Education: Web-Based Conferencing to Support HIV Training in Sub-Saharan Africa

Healthcare workers in Africa managing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients often receive inadequate HIV-specific medical education. The acceptability and feasibility of Web-based distance learning tools to enhance HIV training in Africa have not been extensively evaluated. In this prospective observational study, we assessed the feasibility of Web-conferencing to deliver HIV-specific medical training to clinicians supporting HIV care and treatment across 12 Sub-Saharan African countries over a 10-month period. Webinar attendance, technical quality, and participant satisfaction were measured for each Webinar. Demographic details about participants were recorded. Attendance increased from 40 participants in Month 1 to over 160 in Month 10. Thirty-six percent of participants were physicians, and 21% were in allied health professions. A mean of 95% of respondents found the content to be relevant. Participants reported that the opportunity to interact with HIV clinicians from other countries and expert teaching from leading scientists were major reasons for attendance. Audio quality was variable across countries and over time. Barriers to attendance included lack of information technology (IT) literacy and Internet connectivity. This analysis demonstrates that Webinars are feasible and acceptable to support HIV training. Significant impediments to scale up in use of Web-conferencing for HIV education in resource-limited settings include lack of IT hardware and limited IT literacy. Strengthening IT capacity and Internet infrastructure is necessary to support expanded use of Webinars as a tool for continuing HIV education.