Healthcare Informatics Resources

RE: Health Care Informatics An Interdisciplinary Approach, 2002 by Sheila Englebardt and Ramona Nelson

In reading Part One, The Foundations of Healthcare Informatics I was struck by how amazing the interaction of the systems actually are in the process of informatics. The sum of the parts to become the whole is deceiving on the surface when you are looking at an information system such as the EMR. Our hospital uses Meditech Magic for the majority of our medical patients. In looking at the EMR of a patient on the Meditech system it at first seems like a very simple record of the patient’s care. However, when you break it down and realize what has gone into making this record it is incredible that it happened at all. Not only are there several modules involved in building this seemingly simple record but when you look at the queries for each module and the process of data gathering that comes together to form this record it is truly amazing. I help build the dictionaries for the nursing and physician modules. I am very aware of how involved it is to build a simple assessment in these modules. You must first build the dictionary and the interventions. Then you have to build the queries and the group responses and bring these together in your customer-defined screen. This, in itself, is a complex process. However, reading these chapters reminded me of everything else that is involved in the actual completion of these assessments. There are auto responses that are pulled from the admissions module. I did not define these and yet I expect, or maybe a better term is, take for granted, that these responses will be available for my assessment. The complexity of these systems also made me appreciate how difficult implementation of these systems can be. I found the information on learning styles and adult learning very informative. I have done 2 implementations since I started this position 2 years ago. I have assisted on 2 other implementations as well. As a nurse, my largest role in go live is to teach and support the end users. I will in my next implementation be aware of these learning styles. One of the suggestions I liked was to highlight important details in my education manuals so that the student will not have to write it and be more attentive to the information they are hearing. My hope for the next lesson is some assistance on how to engage clinicians in accepting and using clinical decision support systems. The last chapter acknowledged clinicians could see these systems as a threat. Hopefully the next lesson will give tips on how to lessen this threat and allow the clinicians to see this as a useful tool.