Sie sind auf Seite 1von 4

Health Informatics Journal

http://jhi.sagepub.com Special Issue From research to development to implementation: challenges in health informatics and health information management
Peter A. Bath HEALTH INFORMATICS J 2008; 14; 243 DOI: 10.1177/1460458208096553 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jhi.sagepub.com

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Health Informatics Journal can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jhi.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jhi.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Citations http://jhi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/14/4/243

Downloaded from http://jhi.sagepub.com by liza ellaga on May 5, 2010

Editorial

Health Informatics Journal

Copyright 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC) Vol 14(4): 243245 [1460-4582(200701)14:4; 243245; DOI: 10.1177/1460458208096553] www.sagepublications.com

Special Issue From research to development to implementation: challenges in health informatics and health information management
This special issue arises from the Twelfth International Symposium for Health Information Management Research (ISHIMR 2007) hosted by the University of Shefeld, 1820 July 2007. This annual conference is organized by the Centre for Health Information Management Research (CHIMR) at the University of Shefeld, and returned to Shefeld following successful conferences organized in collaboration with City Liberal Studies in Thessaloniki, Greece (ISHIMR 2005) and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (ISHIMR 2006). The theme for the conference From Research to Development to Implementation: Challenges in Health Informatics and Health Information Management was developed to support researchers and practitioners in disseminating and presenting their work and to promote discussion on the challenges of undertaking research and development in information management and information and communications technology (ICT) in healthcare. This special issue contains the best papers from the conference, as selected by the Health Informatics Journal editor Rob Procter following the ISHIMR peer review process. In addition to encouraging those involved in researching, developing and implementing information and ICT interventions in healthcare to present their work, ISHIMR encourages health informatics and health information management researchers and practitioners to discuss areas of interest. The distinction between health informatics and health information management has been discussed recently [1]. However, ISHIMR emphasizes the overlap between these areas, and what brings them together is a common interest in how information and ICT can be used to improve health and healthcare. While the papers were selected by Rob Procter for their quality, they represent an interesting cross-section of articles describing research, development and implementation

243
Downloaded from http://jhi.sagepub.com by liza ellaga on May 5, 2010

Health Informatics Journal 14 (4)


in health informatics and health information management. The papers describe a range of research methodologies. The selection includes the paper by MacDonald et al., the lead author of which was awarded the prize for the best paper presentation at ISHIMR 2007. The prize, a years subscription to the Health Informatics Journal, is decided by popular vote among the conference attendees and is sponsored by Sage Publications. The special issue commences with MacDonald et al.s research on the information needs and information behaviours of healthcare decision makers working in a non-clinical setting. The study involved semi-structured interviews with paid and voluntary members of a rural district health authority. The paper discusses one of the major themes arising from the interviews, that of information and decisions, and highlights how the complexity of decision making affects the need for information, and how information and knowledge are used during different phases of decision making. Kerr et al.s paper discusses the importance of data quality in healthcare and the need for a policy for their strategic management. Undertaken in New Zealand, the study adopted a mixed methods approach, including action research, focus group and interview methods, to build up a picture of data quality management within the health sector in New Zealand and to determine what was needed for a data quality strategy. The paper reports on the subsequent implementation of the data quality strategy, and highlights the importance of collecting high quality data at an operational level for policy decision making at a national level. The paper by Paterson et al. describes the development and implementation of topic maps for exploring different structures for clinical data relating to hospital patients diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, diabetes and hypertension. The paper outlines and denes a variety of nosological, lexical, semantic and HL7 clinical data architecture structures for these conditions and proposes the topic map as a way to overcome the problems of semantic interoperability between different terminology systems. Seeley and Urquhart discuss the data, information and knowledge required to support a regional framework for head injury service improvement. Utilizing action research methodology, the study used surveys, interviews and service visits to investigate the care pathway for patients with head injuries and examined different sources of evidence, such as the resources and the information systems used at each stage of the pathway. Not only does this paper provide interesting results for improving the head injury service, but it concludes with a reection on the value of the action research methodology in this complex project. The paper by Vidrighin and Potolea describes the development and evaluation of ProICET, a genetic algorithm-based system for diagnosing prostate cancer. ProICET was tested using a real prostate cancer dataset and was useful in identifying the most important attributes affecting postoperative prostate specic antigen. In addition to discussing the merits and limitations of ProICET, the paper illustrates some important aspects of data mining in health and medical data. A further paper from New Zealand by Mirza et al. reports a study to examine the perceptions of healthcare professionals towards mobile technologies in health (m-health) in relation to the management of chronic disease and to identify factors that could affect the adoption and use of these technologies in this context. The qualitative study used semi-structured interviews and identied possible benets to the adoption of m-health, including the potential to increase patient empowerment, as well as concerns about privacy and security.
244
Downloaded from http://jhi.sagepub.com by liza ellaga on May 5, 2010

Bath Editorial

The nal paper, by Guillaume and Bath, describes a content analysis of mass media sources in relation to the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine scare that affected the UK in the late 1990s and the early years of the twenty-rst century. The study analysed 227 articles published in ve different information sources during a 2 month episode of the scare. The paper highlights some important issues regarding the role of the mass media as a health information source for parents. Finally, I would like to thank Rob Procter for continuing the tradition established by the former editor Chris Dowd, and the former Director of CHIMR Dr Barry Eaglestone, of publishing the best ISHIMR conference papers in the Health Informatics Journal. Not only does this provide authors with the incentive and opportunity of having their paper published in the journal in addition to the conference proceedings, but it provides a wider audience for the dissemination of work in this important area. Peter A. Bath University of Shefeld

Reference
1 Bath P A. Health informatics: current issues and challenges. Journal of Information Science 2008; 34 (4); 50118. 2 MacDonald J, Bath P A, Booth A. Healthcare managers decision making: ndings of a small scale exploratory study. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000. 3 Kerr K A, Norris T, Stockdale R. The strategic management of data quality in health care. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000. 4 Paterson G I, Grant A M, Soroka S D. Topic maps for exploring nosological, lexical, semantic and HL7 structures for clinical data. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000. 5 Seeley H, Urquhart C. Action research in developing knowledge networks. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000. 6 Vidrighin C, Potolea R. ProICET: a cost-sensitive system for prostate cancer data. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000. 7 Mirza F, Norris T, Stockdale R. Mobile technologies and the holistic management of chronic diseases. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000. 8 Guillaume L, Bath P A. A content analysis of mass media sources in relation to the MMR vaccine scare. Health Informatics Journal 2008; 14 (4); 000000.

245
Downloaded from http://jhi.sagepub.com by liza ellaga on May 5, 2010

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen