ICTP211: Midterm

• As healthcare and behavioral healthcare information is made available, the more traditional and popular forms of information sources (books, journals, monographs, letters to the editor, newsletters, etc.) are being supplanted by on-line versions
• Online information sources


  • Easier to access
  • Have capabilities that paper counterparts do not
  • Can be searched across multiple volumes
  • Can quickly accommodate requests for other articles by an author
  • Offer access to full text
• The challenge to past and future civilizations has been and will always be the pursuit of knowledge
• Knowledge acquisition


  • Accompanies curiosity
  • Seeking information on many different levels gives humans the ability to search for many more things
  • Multiple levels of information add complexity and layers to using the information
• Information or knowledge rarely stands alone, many characteristics or qualifiers need to be considered
• Mentoring/supervisory relationship


  • The premiere way to communicate quality information
  • Used to learn necessary skills and methods needed for performing procedures
• Classroom instruction, association meetings, and conferences

  • Ensure quality and integrity of information
  • Considered the pinnacle of training and a time-revered tradition
• Indirect methods of gathering knowledge

  • Books, journals, manuscripts, and letters
  • Utilize the written approach to disseminating information
  • Offer a well-organized way to present information
  • Advantages are that it is replicated readily, reaches a greater number of people, and is easily transported to great distances
• Medical school combines the indirect method with the direct, where books supplement classes and supervised lab or clinical experiences
• Today's information


  • Builds on historic roots of tried and true methods of knowledge exchange and enhances them with various technologies
  • Classrooms remain important but can be extended beyond walls through recording techniques, interactive teleconferencing, and other technical enhancements
  • Can combine information in new ways to change learning and views/perspectives instantly using computer technology
  • Interactive video conferencing and telemedicine can dissolve the walls of distance and location
• Standardization


  Establishment of standards or protocols (TCP/IP) that allowed for universal adoption of the Internet
• Hypertext


  • Allows movement or "jumps" to other pages of related information and to other websites regardless of location
  • Allows for interaction with knowledge in a way that is more analogous to the way we think
• Multimedia


  • Changes the way we acquire knowledge and interact with information
  • Allows for many types of media including text, pictures, sound, video, and animation
  • Enhances our interaction with knowledge in ways that are closer to the way we naturally learn
• Nonlinear learning


  • Offers a learning style and interaction with information that is more "natural" and emulates the way we interact with the world
  • Allows the person to explore information from any point, unlike a book which has a beginning, middle, and end
• Marshall McLuhan's views on technology

  • We should not be blinded by technology
  • The whole point of technology is its ability to lead us to the information, then accumulate, and process it for us
  • Technology can either enhance or interfere with knowledge acquisition
  • We need to encourage development of educational programs, algorithms, guidelines, clinical reference tools, and study materials following principles of good design
• Empowering yourself with knowledge

  • Learning about available tools that help understand data
  • Relying on others to tell you what information you can obtain and how to view it leads to dependency
  • Learning the tools needed to manipulate the data yourself is the only way to have adequate control over the data
• How to obtain empowerment over your data

  1. Gain an understanding of the data set being used

  2. Learn to use the tools that will assist in directly manipulating the data

  3. Tools range from simple database or spreadsheet to more complex statistical package
• Behavioral healthcare professional information needs are very complex and require a great deal of integration and coordination of information
• Tools


  Range from simple database or spreadsheet to more complex statistical package
• Database or spreadsheet


  • Can import or export data and offer tools to query, view or graph data in a variety of ways
  • Learning curve is approximately a couple of hours spent learning the interface
• Statistical package


  • Learning curve is steeper and generally for students serious about data or those interested in research
• Behavioral healthcare professional information needs are very complex, requiring a great deal of integration and coordination of information
• A true challenge for this decade is getting all of this information in one place for the clinicians so that they may be well informed and make good treatment decisions
• Solutions such as the enhanced electronic medical record can offer ways to manage and negotiate the complexities of these informational needs
• Patients will gain increased access to their clinical information and participate in clinical decisions and treatments
• Patient access to their information through patient portals is becoming very common today
• Behavioral healthcare professional must ask

  What types of information should be available to patients
• Potential information available to patients

  • Patient data including laboratory data, X-ray, and diagnostic testing
  • ER, field reports
  • Medication information
  • Consultant reports
  • Educational materials
  • Behavioral health and medical knowledge and research
  • Medical, psychiatric, and behavioral health news
  • Referral information
  • Insurance information
• Information and knowledge sharing is essentially the core function of behavioral healthcare professionals
• The capture, analysis, storage, and retrieval processes and technologies, both personal and technological, have permanently changed
• Evolution requires thousands, sometimes millions of years
• The field and tools of decision support and knowledge management are forcing us to travel at warp speed with no brakes in sight
• The clinician must adapt to keep up with their clients and patients
• Information is passed from the client through the practitioner to others in the healthcare organization, and then sent to external parties, primarily the payers of the client's healthcare services, thus directly impacting the practitioner's viability
• There is an increasing amount of post-service audit for publicly funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid
• Clinicians are now required to capture a greater volume of complex information than ever before
• Coding


  Translating information from the multivariate world into a binary one
• Software


  • Mediates transactions between the physical and binary worlds
  • Involves creating categories of information represented by numbers or letters that are easily input into the software
• Standards or codes come to mean the same thing to those who regularly deal with the code information
• Pervasive computing


  Bridging the gap between the exchange of clinical information between a clinician and consumer, and the information "transaction" that occurs between the clinician and technology