Diversity in Health Informatics: Mentoring and Leadership

Diversity, inclusion and interdisciplinary collaboration are drivers for healthcare innovation and adoption of new, technology-mediated services. The importance of diversity has been highlighted by the United Nations’ in SDG5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, to drive adoption of social and digital innovation. Women play an instrumental role in health care and are in position to bring about significant changes to support ongoing digitalization and transformation. At the same time, women are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). To some extent, the same holds for health care informatics. This paper sums up input to strategies for peer mentoring to ensure diversity in health informatics, to target systemic inequalities and build sustainable, intergenerational communities, improve digital health literacy and build capacity in digital health without losing the human touch.

Effect of Procedure Type on Core Competency Implementation by Athletic Training Students

Context Core competencies (CCs) are now a required component of educational content in all types of Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education-accredited athletic training programs. There is limited evidence demonstrating which procedures included during patient encounters (PEs) occurring in clinical education allow for implementation of CCs. Objective To determine the relationship between procedures performed by athletic training students during PEs on CC implementation. Design Panel design. Setting Undergraduate, professional athletic training program, National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I institution. Patients or Other Participants We purposefully recruited 1 athletic training program that used E*Value (Medhub) software; 40 participants (31 female, 9 male) enrolled in the professional phase (12 first year, 14 second year, 14 third year) participated. Interventions Participants viewed a 20 minute recorded CC education module followed by educational handouts, which were available online for reference throughout the semester. E*Value was used to track procedures (prevention, evaluation, manual therapy, rehabilitation, treatment, diagnostic, surgical, or other) performed during PEs and an added block of questions indicating which, if any, of the CCs were implemented during the PE. Main Outcome Measure(s) Independent variables included procedures performed during PEs and whether any of the 6 CCs were implemented (yes/no). Binary logistic regression models determined how the type of procedure performed related to the implementation of each CC. Results Regression models were significant for 5 of the 6 CCs: patient-centered care (PCC; {\rm{\chi }}_7^2 = 62.949, P < .001), interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP; {\rm{\chi }}_6^2 = 41.172, P < .001), health care informatics ({\rm{\chi }}_7^2 = 186.487, P < .001), evidence-based practice (EBP) ({\rm{\chi }}_8^2 = 54.712, P < .001), and quality improvement ({\rm{\chi }}_7^2 = 67.967, P < .001). Participants including evaluation procedures during PE were 3.6 and 1.3 times more likely to implement PCC and IPECP, respectively. Participants including a diagnostic procedure were 4.2 and 2.9 times more likely to implement EBP and IPECP, respectively, and 0.2 times less likely to implement health care informatics. Participants incorporating a manual therapy procedure were 2.6, 1.7, and 2.1 times more likely to implement PCC, EBP, and quality improvement, respectively. Conclusions Athletic training program administrators should identify clinical sites that allow for PEs and procedural opportunities that align with priorities for greater CC implementation.

Edge and Fog Computing in Healthcare – A Review

The architectural framework of Fog and edge computing reveals that the network components which lie between the cloud and devices computes application oriented operations. In this paper, an in-depth review of fog and mist computing in the area of health care informatics is analyzed, classified, and discussed various applications cited in the literature. For that purpose, applications are classified into different categories and a list of application-oriented tasks that can be handled by fog and edge computing are enlisted. It is further added that on which layer of the network system such fog and edge computing tasks can be computed and trade-offs with respect to requirements relevant to healthcare are provided. The review undertaken in this paper focuses on three important areas: firstly, the enormous amount of computing tasks of healthcare system can take mileage of these two computing principles; secondly, the limitation of wireless devices can be overcome by having higher network tiers which can execute tasks and aggregate the data; and thirdly, privacy concerns and dependability prevent computation tasks to completely move to the cloud. Another area which has been considered in the study is how Edge and Fog computing can make the security algorithms more efficient. The findings of the study provide evidence of the need for a logical and consistent approach towards fog and mist computing in healthcare system.

Postprofessional Athletic Training Students' Perceptions Concerning the Health Care Competencies

Context: Over a decade ago, the Institute of Medicine indicated that all health care professionals should be educated in several health care competency areas (quality improvement, health care informatics, interprofessional education and collaborative practice, evidence-based practice, and patient-centered care). Despite this initiative, athletic training has only recently incorporated these competencies throughout education. Objective: To assess postprofessional athletic training students' perceived abilities and importance regarding 6 core competencies. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Self-reported paper survey. Patients or Other Participants: A total of 221 from a convenience sample of 258 postprofessional athletic training students (85.7%) completed the survey (82 males, 138 females; age = 23.29 ± 2.05 years). Main Outcome Measure(s): The survey consisted of several concept statements for each competency, and perceptions were collected via Likert-scale items (range 1–4). Composite perceived ability and importance Likert-scale scores were achieved by tabulating all values and then averaging the scores back to the Likert scale. Higher scores indicated that participants perceived themselves to have greater ability and that the concepts were more important for implementation in clinical practice. Results: Overall, postprofessional athletic training students perceived they were able to implement the concepts of the competencies into their daily practice and perceived all of the competencies to be moderately to extremely important for implementation. However, while participants globally perceived they were able to implement the competencies, they disagreed or strongly disagreed they were able to implement some concepts, particularly within health care informatics and patient-centered care, as a part of their clinical practice. Conclusions: Postprofessional athletic training students recognize the importance of the core competencies and perceive they are able to implement these competencies throughout clinical practice. However, as postprofessional athletic training students continue to advance their skills as clinicians, the benefits of health care informatics and incorporating real-time electronic patient data to support their clinical decisions should be emphasized.