Competencies for Learning and Working in E-Health Environment Summer Institute of Health Informatics and Canadian Medical Association Electronic Medical Records case study

Abstract

Knowledge learned in academic settings is solidified and made practical via apprenticeship experiences. The internships in the Master of Health Informatics at Dalhousie University program helps students bridge their knowledge from a classroom setting to a real world setting. In today’s climate, healthcare providers have an increasing burden of sorting thorough vast amounts of information with time constraints. One of the important tasks of health informaticians is to identify the requirement of the health professionals and provide them the knowledge and tools to do their day to day activities efficiently. The health informatician must distribute the available knowledge according to the stockholder’s needs. The main objective of this internship was to develop Decision Support exercises for the Division of Medical Education (DME)-Summer Institute of Health Informatics (SIHI). The other main objective was to encode an interview in a qualitative software ATLAS ti for the Canadian Medical Association (CMA)-Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Case Study. Both objectives aim was based on knowledge sharing within the learned communities. The Dalhousie University Medical School has significant number of educational programs for their students. The Division of Medical Education (DME) is a division under the Faculty of Medicine which undertakes and fosters research and development in medical education with particular emphasis in faculty development, communication skills, medical informatics and health/medical education research. As part of this internship’s objective; Clinical Decision Support Systems tools (CDSS) were explained with hands on experience on CDSS tools like ISABEL, Visual Dx, data analysis along with operations of SPSS, a statistical package, were explained for decision making to the faculty to help promote life long learning. The SIHI worked as a knowledge sharing model 5 through Community of Participation (CoP) which was effective according to the response of the participant; however an effective sharing of this knowledge gained through an online discussion forum should be implemented in the future. Canada does not have full implementation of EMR and there is tremendous room for growth. The Canadian Medical Association (CMA)-Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Case Study is the first national collaborative effort among academic researchers and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) representatives to examine the implementation and use of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system in primary care settings. The purpose of this research was to provide physicians with practical information on best practices and lessons learned with regards to implementation and use of EMR systems in clinical practice settings. Systematic procedures were followed under the supervision of Dr. Grace Paterson. Moncton, New Brunswick was visited physically and the information was recorded, transcribed and a previously conducted interview by researchers was analyzed by this author using qualitative data analysis software Atlas-ti. The findings of EMR implementation case study will be published and will be recommended to the different stakeholders so that effective measures are taken to make an integrated health care system, the primary initiative of the Canada Health Infoway. Both the above tasks should inspire the participants to use intelligent software’s in case of clinical and other health related decision making. There should be continued and enhanced cooperation between health informaticians and health care providers to provide optimal delivery of health care.