Hello everyone! My name is Kattia (pronounced Kuh-Tea-uh) and I am currently a senior at FHSU. I am on track to complete my bachelor’s degree in Information Networking with an emphasis in Health Informatics in May 2022. I live in rural Kansas with my fiancé and our two children; my daughter is 8 years old and my son is 2 years old. I also have two bonus kids who are 15 and 12 that visit regularly as well.
Technological advances have allowed doctors and medical professionals to advance medicine by faster diagnoses and quicker intervention to prevent the long-term effects of health related issues, but how does technology help the patient by understanding their diagnosis and treatment options? Technology has greatly impacted the research and treatment of medicine, but there haven’t been as many advances in health technology for the use of patients and their health. Is there a gap in the technology that is available and the user learning curve? Poor design? And how can the use of technology truly make a good impact on a patients health and society’s health overall?
I think this is really interesting take on Healthcare technology. While yes, technology has improved the healthcare field and saved countless lives, the patient plays no role in their healthcare other than showing up for appointments and treatments. The emphasis in looking into patient oriented technology is very interesting and is one of those things “I didn’t know I needed until now”. Interested to see what you find during your research.
Technology has definitely made it easier for patients to know and understand their health. Companies like Epic have created ways to make scheduling with their healthcare providers more convenient. They have also made it easier to see and interpret lab results. However, technology has opened the door to “self diagnosis”. Some may rely on a search engine instead of a trained healthcare provider. My wife is a healthcare provider and has seen this with some of her patients, especially relating to COVID. She sees many COVID patients that are unvaccinated. They were hesitant to get the vaccine because they didn’t trust it being so new and only being authorized for emergency use only; however, when they get to the hospital, they ask for experimental treatments that aren’t even authorized by the FDA.
I have previously worked for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services in the legislature and have a sister who is an RN so health data is very interesting to me. I think the most intriguing aspect of health data is that you can be very good at collecting health data like the CDC is but your data may not capture an accurate depiction of what is going on if you don’t take into consideration outliers or factors that impact the data. For example, the U.S. has a highly rated infant mortality rate but that data does not take into consideration that some counties do not have the same reporting requirements, some countries have more home births so those examples are not recorded, etc. so the data showing our higher mortality rate may not be correct when considering all factors.
I think this is a great topic to cover given the ongoing events we’ve all been dealing with. I also agree with the general consensus that technology has greatly helped society and allowed people to further think outside the box. Much of my family has worked in the medical field, and each side has its own list of medical problems, so I’ve seen interesting new ways in which technology has been able to conveniently improve the daily quality of life for others. However, I’ve complained before about being informed of your options and the struggle of even having access to them, so I’m curious what you’re able to turn up!
I think that the global pandemic we are going through makes this topic all the more relevant. It is very striking how much worse off people have been during the COVID-19 pandemic in lesser developed nations with less health infrastructure. I think this is especially evident in the increased risk cases requiring hospitalizations. The death toll numbers don’t lie.
Health Informatics (eHealth, Health Information Management). It is the research of health information management resources and methods. This area of research supports health information technology, medical practice, and medical research.
So health informatics includes systems such as Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical records (EMR), health information exchange standards such as Health Level 7 (HL7), medical terminology such as Systematic Clinical Medical Terminology (SNOMED CT), and portable data acquisition medical devices.
Nice to meet you Kattia.
I like the direction you have decided to take. I think we haven’t really put much though into the patient’s side of technology in medicine because the doctors can do all the explanation. But sometimes further research should be done by patients to really understand what they are dealing with. I hope this lie of research works out.
Cool Post Kattia!
I am also fascinated by this area of innovation, as if it is executed well can be a great experience for patients and hospital employees but if it is executed poorly can be a horrid experience. I am an Information Systems guy and I understand how much data hospitals work with on a daily basis. If a person ends up in the Emergency Room somewhere other than at their regular hospital, it is critical that he or she’s medical information gets to that emergency room as fast as possible so that the doctors can understand their patient’s medical history. Making these processes as smooth as possible can mean life or death for many patients.