Informatics Nerd

As I'm getting ready for a yearly performance review, I started thinking about when I applied for this and previous jobs and all of the effort I put into building the "perfect" resume. Tweaking it to have the right keywords for the job description, making sure I didn't overstate or understate my effort, but making sure whoever read this knew I was the best candidate. I started thinking about what that really translates to at my job, and what skills are practical and important each day. I came up with this as my new resume (no, not sending it out, very happy at my current job but thanks). Of course I realize sometimes you have to "play the game", but tell me this isn't what you're really looking for in an employee: I know I need to keep learning, and so I do.  I can (and do) listen better than I can speak.  I won't be a jerk to anyone in the organization, no matter their role.  I will come in to work and genuinely want to be there. I...

While poor time planning may be mostly to blame, I have also been quite busy the past few months with the new addition of a baby boy (our first child) to our household. Walking through the medical system in the context of delivery, follow-up and now pediatric care has given me some insight into those parts of healthcare. Previously my only personal interactions were the occasional office visit for check-ups. With no real complaints, I was more amazed at the amount of data being collected in the time prior to delivery, and the realization that my son has his own medical record number! At home, my wife brought to light a potential area for growth in newborn care - driven more out of need than any formal proposal. Tracking feedings and diaper changes was something done at the hospital, and once we were home the feeding chart became a very valuable flowsheet of information. Currently it's been done on paper (don't worry, I have plans to develop an app!), but has given our sl...

The field of health and biomedical informatics is ever changing, not only just in name (noticing perhaps the recent pre-pending of “health and”), but also by the individuals who are practitioners.  Review of early works in the field show many of the seminal pieces originated from doctors who understood the impact that technology could play in healthcare [1, 2].  As the field expanded and grew, it was perhaps natural that other healthcare providers (i.e. nurses and public health practitioners) realized the special needs that pertained to their unique practice and workflow.  With this realization blossomed a growth of sub-disciplines within HBI, to the point that nursing informatics and public health informatics are vibrant components of the broader HBI community, and large enough to warrant annual meetings. The growth, of course, is not limited to just a few disciplines within the spectrum of providing healthcare, but also to the side of those who are focused on health in...

This is the first in a series of posts I'll be doing to recount the recent AMIA 2011 Symposium in Washington D.C.  What can I say - WOW!  It was a week ago already that I arrived, and after a few days of having my brain filled I (needless to say) needed a few days to relax and decompress. I began AMIA on Sunday night with a Late Breaking session about the Sorrell v. IMS Health case in Vermont where it was outlawed for pharmacies from selling prescription information to data mining and pharma companies.  While I make it no secret the details of legal proceedings are often over my head (I initially attended to see a fellow OHSU classmate present), this was a great discussion and raised some important considerations about the sharing of data. While many of the details of the discussion revolved around the legalities of how data miners were justifying the acquisition of the data under "Freedom of Speech", I found the discussion around how data could and should be used ver...

I'm always amazed by the plethora and quality of software released by the biomedical informatics community.  I personally have benefited from great projects like i2b2 and cTAKES amongst many others, and know of a ton of others that are available for use. While not to question or point out any particular project, there are examples where there is an existing system that does something quite well, and another organization either funds or gets funding to build another similar system.  It's true that in many cases this can bring about a new innovation or new direction in solving a problem, but one also has to question the amount of resource that's being used to reinvent basic components. To make this more concrete, let's come up with a hypothetical example of two open source de-identification systems.  System A is developed and provides an algorithm that performs fairly well, as well as a user interface that allows people to review documents.  System B is also deve...

University of Tennessee, Knoxville researchers, led by Dr. Xiaopeng Zhao, have developed a new algorithm to improve ECGs that are conducted remotely over a smartphone.  First, since I find telemedicine fascinating but don't follow the field closely, I wasn't even aware that you could conduct an ECG on a smartphone.  Knowing that, the algorithm described improves the ability to conduct one remotely (and possibly by someone who is not a trained expert) by attempting to analyze the possibility of noise in the signal, and even tries to provide suggestions about electrode placement. This is amazing, fascinating, and my big question is how soon this can be rolled out into care!  Obviously proper evaluation needs to be done, but this has great implications for providing care in remote settings, not only internationally but even domestically.  The implications for medical research may also be addressed if studies could benefit from field conduction of ECGs. From a techn...

There's an interesting summary on CMIO , about an equally interesting article over at JAMIA regarding design and user acceptance of an EHR over one year.  We should applaud the authors for proving a long-held tenant of developing EHRs - that a well-designed EHR will be well-accepted (and increasingly so) over time.  Part of the explanation for an increased acceptance over time can be attributed to a learning effect, and the fact that the users are getting comfortable using the system.  This holds true especially for well-designed software.  I can only speculate that poorly designed software would also see better (relatively speaking) acceptance as users just get worn down on using poorly designed software.  Definitely another reason to design it right the first time. The tangent from here that my mind takes is that when technology changes and new innovations are made, how do we get users to buy into changing what they've grown to like?  Assuming that the...