scholarly journals Public health platforms: an emerging informatics approach to health professional learning and development

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Gray

Health informatics has a major role to play in optimising the management and use of data, information and knowledge in health systems. As health systems undergo digital transformation, it is important to consider informatics approaches not only to curriculum content but also to the design of learning environments and learning activities for health professional learning and development. An example of such an informatics approach is the use of large-scale, integrated public health platforms on the Internet as part of health professional learning and development. This article describes selected examples of such platforms, with a focus on how they may influence the direction of health professional learning and development.

Author(s):  
Sundeep Sahay ◽  
T Sundararaman ◽  
Jørn Braa

This chapter places public health informatics within a public health context. An understanding of PHI must be built on the perspective of public health as the health of populations. In LMICs it is closely related to an understanding of the primary healthcare approach, and the role and functions of public health systems, including the measurement of health status and equity, the effective coverage of different health programmes, and the utilization of different health services. This requires an understanding of the social and environmental determinants of healthcare, which need relevant data from other sectors as well. The architecture and development of public health informatics varies across nations and is path-dependent and context-specific. Many have evolved as monitoring support to externally financed vertical programmes, some as support for comprehensive primary health programmes and some from support systems for health insurance. The current information needs of health systems, transcends their respective origins, and requires both individual-based clinical information and aggregate population-based data.


Author(s):  
Olaf Müller ◽  
Guangyu Lu ◽  
Albrecht Jahn ◽  
Oliver Razum

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak started in China in December 2019 and has developed into a pandemic. Using mandatory large-scale public health interventions including a lockdown with locally varying intensity and duration, China has been successful in controlling the epidemic at an early stage. The epicentre of the pandemic has since shifted to Europe and The Americas. In certain cities and regions, health systems became overwhelmed by high numbers of cases and deaths, whereas other regions continue to experience low incidence rates. Still, lockdowns were usually implemented country-wide, albeit with differing intensities between countries. Compared to its neighbours, Germany has managed to keep the epidemic relatively well under control, in spite of a lockdown that was only partial. In analogy to many countries at a similar stage, Germany is now under increasing pressure to further relax lockdown measures to limit economic and psychosocial costs. However, if this is done too rapidly, Germany risks facing tens of thousands more severe cases of COVID-19 and deaths in the coming months. Hence, it could again follow China’s example and relax measures according to local incidence, based on intensive testing.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Jay Carney ◽  
Christopher Michael Shea

Public health informatics is an evolving domain in which practices constantly change to meet the demands of a highly complex public health and healthcare delivery system. Given the emergence of various concepts, such as learning health systems, smart health systems, and adaptive complex health systems, health informatics professionals would benefit from a common set of measures and capabilities to inform our modeling, measuring, and managing of health system “smartness.” Here, we introduce the concepts of organizational complexity, problem/issue complexity, and situational awareness as three codependent drivers of smart public health systems characteristics. We also propose seven smart public health systems measures and capabilities that are important in a public health informatics professional’s toolkit.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sundeep Sahay ◽  
Arunima S Mukherjee ◽  
Carolyn K Tauro ◽  
Arijit Sen

Anthony Giddens, the noted sociologist, describes the COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘digidemic,’ emphasizing the inextricable linkages between the pandemic and the digital. As the pandemic has spread globally, countries have adopted different strategies to leverage digital technologies, in their design, development, implementation, and governance to address the pandemic. Some of these strategies have worked well and others have not so. We submitted this paper at the time when India was fighting the first COVID-19 wave and are submitting this revised version as India fights a much tougher second wave. And between these two waves, we have witnessed some flattening of the COVID-19 curve and the onset of a rigorous vaccination drive. This paper aims to try to analyse some experiences of how countries leveraged digital technologies in their information systems response, such as from Sri Lanka, South Korea and anchored in a historical understanding of public Health Information Systems (HIS) in India, build key learnings for strengthening HIS in India, both for pandemic situations and also routine health management. These include i) improving agility, reflecting the ability of the HIS to provide timely information for supporting local action; ii) improving relevance, implying providing required information for supporting the desired action for different stakeholders; and, iii) public friendliness, implying the HIS should help support population health at large in an equitable manner. We argue that these learnings are not only relevant for strengthening the HIS response to pandemic management but also more broadly for strengthening Indian public HIS covering routine systems. These learnings are particularly pertinent in the current ‘digital’ context in India, where large-scale interventions related to the National Digital Health Mission are currently being planned and implemented. For good or bad, the ‘digital’ is inevitable in public health systems globally, and it becomes important for researchers and practitioners to engage with this process of understanding the digital interventions and contribute to strengthening the health systems.


Author(s):  
Sundeep Sahay ◽  
T Sundararaman ◽  
Jørn Braa

This chapter enriches the Expanded PHI perspective through the lens of complexity. Current technical health systems and institutional developments, including the increasing inter-connections between them, and the uncertainities associated with both context and goals are enhancing complexity exponentially. Simple linear approaches to design and develop systems can no longer work, as they imply trying to bring order into processes which by definition defy them. Cloud computing and big data are offered as examples to depict this rising complexity, providing rich opportunities to materialize them. Many organizations are adopting outsourcing models as a means to manage this complexity. However, outsourcing comes in multiple hues and shades, from a simple use of third party hardware to the externalization of the whole value chain of activities, including the analysis and use of data. Public health informatics in LMICs, which are population-based and taking place in largely resource-constrained and unstructured settings, are by definition problematic to outsource and should be approached with caution. An incremental approach where a ‘cultivation strategy’ addresses uncertainities, and ‘attractors’ draw in user-participants are more likely to succeed.


2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 247-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Nelson ◽  
Ellen Burke Beckjord ◽  
David J. Dausey ◽  
Edward Chan ◽  
Debra Lotstein ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe lack of frequent real-world opportunities to study preparedness for large-scale public health emergencies has hindered the development of an evidence base to support best practices, performance measures, standards, and other tools needed to assess and improve the nation’s multibillion dollar investment in public health preparedness. In this article, we argue that initial funding priorities for public health systems research on preparedness should focus on using engineering-style methods to identify core preparedness processes, developing novel data sources and measures based on smaller-scale proxy events, and developing performance improvement approaches to support the translation of research into practice within the wide variety of public health systems found in the nation. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2008;2:247–250)


2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (04) ◽  
pp. 294-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lutz S. Freudenberg ◽  
Ulf Dittmer ◽  
Ken Herrmann

Abstract Introduction Preparations of health systems to accommodate large number of severely ill COVID-19 patients in March/April 2020 has a significant impact on nuclear medicine departments. Materials and Methods A web-based questionnaire was designed to differentiate the impact of the pandemic on inpatient and outpatient nuclear medicine operations and on public versus private health systems, respectively. Questions were addressing the following issues: impact on nuclear medicine diagnostics and therapy, use of recommendations, personal protective equipment, and organizational adaptations. The survey was available for 6 days and closed on April 20, 2020. Results 113 complete responses were recorded. Nearly all participants (97 %) report a decline of nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures. The mean reduction in the last three weeks for PET/CT, scintigraphies of bone, myocardium, lung thyroid, sentinel lymph-node are –14.4 %, –47.2 %, –47.5 %, –40.7 %, –58.4 %, and –25.2 % respectively. Furthermore, 76 % of the participants report a reduction in therapies especially for benign thyroid disease (-41.8 %) and radiosynoviorthesis (–53.8 %) while tumor therapies remained mainly stable. 48 % of the participants report a shortage of personal protective equipment. Conclusions Nuclear medicine services are notably reduced 3 weeks after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic reached Germany, Austria and Switzerland on a large scale. We must be aware that the current crisis will also have a significant economic impact on the healthcare system. As the survey cannot adapt to daily dynamic changes in priorities, it serves as a first snapshot requiring follow-up studies and comparisons with other countries and regions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
Disyacitta Neolia Firdana ◽  
Trimurtini Trimurtini

This research aimed to determine the properness and effectiveness of the big book media on learning equivalent fractions of fourth grade students. The method of research is Research and Development  (R&D). This study was conducted in fourth grade of SDN Karanganyar 02 Kota Semarang. Data sources from media validation, material validation, learning outcomes, and teacher and students responses on developed media. Pre-experimental research design with one group pretest-posttest design. Big book developed consist of equivalent fractions material, students learning activities sheets with rectangle and circle shape pictures, and questions about equivalent fractions. Big book was developed based on students and teacher needs. This big book fulfill the media validity of 3,75 with very good criteria and scored 3 by material experts with good criteria. In large-scale trial, the result of students posttest have learning outcomes completness 82,14%. The result of N-gain calculation with result 0,55 indicates the criterion “medium”. The t-test result 9,6320 > 2,0484 which means the average of posttest outcomes is better than the average of pretest outcomes. Based on that data, this study has produced big book media which proper and effective as a media of learning equivalent fractions of fourth grade elementary school.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gaisl ◽  
Naser Musli ◽  
Patrick Baumgartner ◽  
Marc Meier ◽  
Silvana K Rampini ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND The health aspects, disease frequencies, and specific health interests of prisoners and refugees are poorly understood. Importantly, access to the health care system is limited for this vulnerable population. There has been no systematic investigation to understand the health issues of inmates in Switzerland. Furthermore, little is known on how recent migration flows in Europe may have affected the health conditions of inmates. OBJECTIVE The Swiss Prison Study (SWIPS) is a large-scale observational study with the aim of establishing a public health registry in northern-central Switzerland. The primary objective is to establish a central database to assess disease prevalence (ie, International Classification of Diseases-10 codes [German modification]) among prisoners. The secondary objectives include the following: (1) to compare the 2015 versus 2020 disease prevalence among inmates against a representative sample from the local resident population, (2) to assess longitudinal changes in disease prevalence from 2015 to 2020 by using cross-sectional medical records from all inmates at the Police Prison Zurich, Switzerland, and (3) to identify unrecognized health problems to prepare successful public health strategies. METHODS Demographic and health-related data such as age, sex, country of origin, duration of imprisonment, medication (including the drug name, brand, dosage, and release), and medical history (including the International Classification of Diseases-10 codes [German modification] for all diagnoses and external results that are part of the medical history in the prison) have been deposited in a central register over a span of 5 years (January 2015 to August 2020). The final cohort is expected to comprise approximately 50,000 to 60,000 prisoners from the Police Prison Zurich, Switzerland. RESULTS This study was approved on August 5, 2019 by the ethical committee of the Canton of Zurich with the registration code KEK-ZH No. 2019-01055 and funded in August 2020 by the “Walter and Gertrud Siegenthaler” foundation and the “Theodor and Ida Herzog-Egli” foundation. This study is registered with the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number registry. Data collection started in August 2019 and results are expected to be published in 2021. Findings will be disseminated through scientific papers as well as presentations and public events. CONCLUSIONS This study will construct a valuable database of information regarding the health of inmates and refugees in Swiss prisons and will act as groundwork for future interventions in this vulnerable population. CLINICALTRIAL ISRCTN registry ISRCTN11714665; http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN11714665 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/23973


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