Studies in health technology and informatics
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Much has been written on the benefits of big data for healthcare such as improving patient outcomes, public health surveillance, and healthcare policy decisions. Over the past five years, Big Data, and the data sciences field in general, has been hyped as the "Holy Grail" for the healthcare industry promising a more efficient healthcare system with the promise of improved healthcare outcomes. ⋯ Our study results show that although Big Data is built up to be as a the "Holy Grail" for healthcare, small data techniques using traditional statistical methods are, in many cases, more accurate and can lead to more improved healthcare outcomes than Big Data methods. In sum, Big Data for healthcare may cause more problems for the healthcare industry than solutions, and in short, when it comes to the use of data in healthcare, "size isn't everything."
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2017
Mapping Equivalence of German Emergency Department Medical Record Concepts with SNOMED CT After Implementation with HL7 CDA.
The German Emergency Department Medical Record (GEDMR) was created by medical domain experts and healthcare providers providing a dataset as well as a form. The trauma module of GEDMR was syntactically standardized using HL7 CDA and semantically standardized using different terminologies including SNOMED CT, LOINC and proprietary coding systems. This study depicts the mapping accuracy with aforementioned syntactical and semantical standards in general and especially the content coverage of SNOMED CT. ⋯ The terminology binding problem is relevant when combining different standards for syntactic and semantic interoperability with best practice documents and reference specifications providing guidance. A national license and extension for SNOMED CT in Germany as well as an ongoing effort in contributing to the International Version of SNOMED CT would be necessary to gain full coverage for concepts in German Emergency Medicine and to leverage the associated standardization process.
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Current efforts to improve nursing handover frequently use prescriptive approaches based on research evidence of handover issues within a single nursing ward or nursing specialty. Despite reported handover improvement, few studies adequately consider the transferability of results to other nursing handover environments or acknowledge the unique attributes that supported sustained improvement. ⋯ This paper describes a qualitative research project that examined nursing handover in three different wards - General Medicine, General Surgery and Department of Emergency Medicine in a tertiary teaching hospital. Through conduct of a detailed analysis of nursing handover processes, this paper highlights the similarities and differences in the handover among the three different wards and presents five key socio-technical insights to support safe nursing handover.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2017
The Journey to Become a Health Literate Organization: A Snapshot of Health System Improvement.
A health literate health care organization is one that makes it easy for people to navigate, understand, and use information and services to take care of their health. This chapter explores the journey that a growing number of organizations are taking to become health literate. Health literacy improvement has increasingly been viewed as a systems issue, one that moves beyond siloed efforts by recognizing that action is required on multiple levels. ⋯ Nonetheless, discernable progress has been made. While committed to transformation, organizations seeking to be health literate recognize that it is not a destination you can ever reach. A health literate organization is constantly striving, always knowing that further improvement can be made.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2017
Clinical Simulation: Evaluating the Usability of a Health Information System in a Telenurse Call Centre.
Telenursing is a specialized subset of nursing practice that has emerged in response to the development of health care technology. Telenurses use health information systems (HIS) as their main source of health information in order to assist callers with their health related concerns on the telephone. ⋯ The purpose of this paper is to describe usability issues that emerged during a clinical simulation study of nurses working in a call centre. Clinical simulation was thus chosen as the most comprehensive methodology in this study and its benefits will be discussed.