What is the utility of a linear model of patient care as the basis for a decision-supportsystem? What are two primary limitations? Discuss two challenges that a nonlinear model poses for representing and supporting the care process in an information system?
Compare and contrast “segregated” versus “integrated” models of interdisciplinarypatient care. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each model as a mode of care delivery? As the basis for developing information systems to plan, document, and support patient care?
Imagine a patient-care information system that assists in planning the care of eachpatient independently of all the other patients in a service center or patient-care unit. What are three advantages to the developer in choosing such an information architecture? What would be the likely result in the real world of practice? Does it make a difference whether the practice setting is hospital, ambulatory care, or home care? What would be the simplest information architecture that would be sufficiently complex to handle real-world demands? Explain.
Zielstorff et al. (1993) proposed that data routinely recorded during the process ofpatient care could be abstracted, aggregated, and analyzed for management reports, policy decisions, and knowledge development. What are three advantages of using patient care data in this way? What are three significant limitations?
A number of patient-care information systems designed in the 1970s are still in use.How do the practice models, payer models, and quality focus of today differ from those of the past? What differences do these changes require in information systems? What are two advantages and two disadvantages of “retrofitting” these changes on older systems versus designing new systems “from scratch”?
What are three advantages and three disadvantages of free text (including oral narrative entered by dictation) versus structured data for recording observations, assessments, goals, and plans? What is the impact of using free text on the ability to retrieve and aggregate data? Should developmental efforts focus on interpreting natural language or on creating data standards? Explain your position.
What are four major purposes of patient care information systems? What criteriashould be used to evaluate them? What methods of evaluation could be used to assess the system with respect to these criteria?
Week 17 Questions
Describe how the integration of information from multiple bedside monitors, the pharmacy, and the clinical laboratory can help to improve the sensitivity and specificity of the alarm systems used in the ICU.
What factors must you consider when deciding when and how often a physiological, biochemical, or observational variable should be measured and stored in a computer’s database?
You have been asked to design part of an electronic exercise bicycle. Sensors in thehand grips of the bicycle will be used to pick up transmitted electrical signals reflecting the rider’s heart activity. Your system then will display the rider’s heart ratenumerically in a liquid crystal display (LCD).
Describe the steps your system must take in converting the heart’s electrical signals(essentially a single ECG lead) into the heart rate displayed on the LCD.
Describe how computerized data acquisition can be more efficient and accurate than manual methods of data acquisition.
Week 18 Questions
Describe the various factors that a planner must consider when estimating the stor-age requirements for image data in an all-digital radiology department. What are the major factors that reduce the volume of data that are maintained in on-line storage?
Refer to Table 18.1. How many bytes are needed to store a digitized chest X-ray image? How many bytes are needed to store a 15-image CT study? If you have a com-munication line that transmits 56,000 bits per second, how long will it take to trans-mit each of these images to the display workstations within the hospital? What are the implications of your answer for widespread transmission of image data?
What are the economic and technologic factors that determine how quickly hospitals and clinics can adopt alldigital radiology departments?
What are the ways in which radiology reports of examination interpretations can be generated, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, in terms of ease and efficiency of report creation, timeliness of availability of report to clini-cians, usefulness for retrieval of cases for research and education?
