REQUIREMENTS IN INFORMATICS

1. How do you use the internet in patient education? Give specific example

- The internet has revolutionized the way that many people access, share and
communicate information throughout the world. As health educators and
professionals have been seeking ways to facilitate, develop, and to deliver effective
health education to individuals and the communities, the Internet is playing an
increasingly important role in health education research and practice.

- The plethora of communication channels in the internet, such as the world wide web,
email, newsgroups, online forums, chat rooms, instant messaging, or online social
media, etc, have important implications on health education can be delivered. There
are several ways in which the Internet has been used for health education. The first
involves professional development. Several studies have examined the use of the
Internet for distance learning and continuing education on health-related courses. The
second and the most important one, is the use of the Internet as an intervention
channel. This includes the distribution of health information, or intervention systems
aimed at helping individuals make health behavior change. Indeed, research has
documented the effectiveness of a wealth of health education or intervention that was
delivered through various channels in the internet. For example, professional online
intervention systems have been developed for various health conditions. These online
specifically designed online intervention systems combined health information
provision with various components including decisional support, question and
answer, and communication with experts or other system users. Numerous positive
outcomes associated with the use of these online intervention systems have been
reported, including more use of active coping strategies, improvement in health
behaviors, and better mental health and quality of life.

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of online patient education? Give 5
each.
Advantages:

 Increased ability to measure and collect data.

 Increased interactivity.
 Faster response to both patients and for the health workers.
 Improvement in health industry, reduction of disease, prevention and cure of disease.
 It creates advances in technology and research.

Disadvantages:

 Not having a physical presence

 Not adopted by all people
 Potential for less networking opportunities.
 Relies on professional health workers and technology
 Misleading information

3. Is online health education beneficial for both the patient and the health care
professional?
- Health education to patient is an integral part of healthcare management . With the
advancement in technology and availability of the Internet, health education could be
disseminated to patients through online media as well. Traditionally health education
is delivered in the medium of face to face communication by health professionals and
health educators to healthcare consumers and this has been proven effective.
However, more flexible health education can be offered online and this method can
complement the current face-to-face education. In many cases, when healthcare
consumers understand their disease status, complications and their management, they
become more involved in their healthcare. This increase in consumer knowledge may
then lead to improved health outcomes. Additional advantages of online health
education include the ability of consumers to access health education material in their
own time and the ability to facilitate disease self-management.
- It is believed that a consumer, who is educated about his or her health-related
problems, will have better adherence to treatments. From the consumers’ point of
view, by knowing what they are going to go through helps them to prepare
themselves for their treatments. Without knowing what they are going to face,
consumers might be reluctant to cooperate in their treatments, which could make it
more difficult to cure or improve their medical conditions.

4. What is role of technology in medication use process?

 - The technology is helpful in medications process since it can help the health care
provider to search the right medicine into a particular patient. Using the information
technology it will reduce the rate of medication errors.

- They can be used to store the information about the medicines prescribed to a patient
as well as those, which cannot be prescribed to him/her. Computers enable an
efficient storage of huge amounts of medical data.

- Medicine comprises good knowledge. Computer storage can serve as the best means
of housing this information. Medical journals, research and diagnosis papers,
important medical documents and reference books can best be stored in an electronic
format.

5. What is Nursing Minimum Data Set System? What is the purpose and components?

- Uniform Minimum Health Data Sets, the NMDS is defined as a minimum set of items
of information with uniform definitions and categories concerning the specific
dimension of nursing which meets the information needs of multiple data users in the
health care system. It includes those specific items of information that are used on a
regular basis by the majority of nurses in any care delivery setting. It is an abstraction
system, or tool, designed for the collection of uniform, standard, comparable,
minimum nursing data for use across various types of settings and patient groups.
These data also are useful to other health professionals and researchers.

Purposes of the NMDS

 Establish comparability of nursing data across clinical populations, settings, geographic

areas, and time.
 Describe the nursing care of clients and their families in a variety of settings.
 Demonstrate or project trends regarding nursing care provided and allocation of nursing
resources to individuals or populations according to their health problems, or nursing
diagnoses.
 Stimulate nursing research using the NMDS elements alone, as well as through links to
the more detailed data existing in nursing and other health care information systems.
 Provide data about nursing care to influence and facilitate health policy decision making.

Benefit of the NMDS

 Access to comparable, minimum nursing care and resources data on local, regional,
national, and international levels;
 Enhanced documentation of nursing care provided.
 Identification of trends related to client problems or nursing diagnoses and nursing care
provided.
 Impetus to improved costing of nursing services;
 Improved data for quality assurance evaluations;
 Impetus to further development and refinement of nursing information systems;

 Comparative research on nursing care, including research on nursing diagnoses, nursing

interventions, resolution status of client diagnoses or problems, and referral for further
nursing services;
 Contributions toward advancing nursing as a research-based discipline.
 Easily retrievable data that would make nursing's data available for nursing, as well as for
other health care providers and policy makers.