Healthcare Information Systems (HCIS) Curriculum

There is a reawakening of enthusiasm for Healthcare topics at AMCIS, witnessed, too, by the formation of a Healthcare SIG. At the same time, numerous AMCIS attendees lamented the challenges of developing an effective and contemporary undergraduate and graduate curriculum for Healthcare MIS. The field is growing rapidly, and includes diverse healthoriented topics and sub-specialties like bioinformatics, nursing informatics, home healthcare technologies, telemedicine, privacy and security, e-Health, and a wide range of patient-, clinical- and managerial-decision support systems. For this panel we have assembled a well-seasoned group of speakers and educators to advance our collective ability to teach “state of the art” courses in this critically important area

Strengthening The Curriculum Of Information Systems Program

Information Systems as a field of academic study has witnessed tremendous growth in scope and depth since its beginning in the 1960s. Diversified information systems job market and widespread use of technology in healthcare organizations indicate a growing demand for IT personnel in healthcare organizations. This paper attempts to present a model for designing curriculum for Healthcare Information Systems concentration for an IT undergraduate program. The design of this curriculum is based on the recommendations of the Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology (ABET) - Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC). This model can be used by any higher educational institute that plans to redesign its IT curriculum to offer specializations. Lessons learnt indicate a need to get employers involved in the design process so that the knowledge and skill areas of the curriculum are responsive to the employer’s requirements

UA66/4/2 Allied Health Department Newsletter Issue No. 2

Newsletter created by and about WKU Allied Health

Plugging a hole and lightening the burden: A process evaluation of a practice education team

Aim: To investigate the perceptions of clinical and senior managers about the role of Practice Educators employed in one acute hospital in the UK. Background: Producing nurses who are fit for practice, purpose and academic award is a key issue for nurse education partnership providers in the UK. Various new models for practice learning support structures and new roles within health care institutions have been established. To sustain funding and policy support for these models, there is a need for evaluation research. Design: A process evaluation methodology was employed to determine the current value of a practice education team and to provide information to guide future direction. Methods: Data were collected through semi-structured telephone interviews using a previously designed schedule. All senior nurse managers (N=5) and a purposive sample of clinical managers (n=13) who had personal experience of and perceptions about the role of practice educators provided the data. Interview notes were transcribed, coded and a thematic framework devised to present the results. Results: A number of key themes emerged including: qualities needed for being a successful practice educator; visibility and presence of practice educators; providing a link with the university; ‘plugging a hole’ in supporting learning needs; providing relief to practitioners in dealing with ‘the burden of students’; alleviating the ‘plight of students’; and effects on student attrition. Conclusions: Findings provided evidence for the continued funding of the practice educator role with improvements to be made in dealing with stakeholder expectations and outcomes. Relevance to clinical practice: In the UK, there still remain concerns about the fitness for practice of newly registered nurses, prompting a recent national consultation by the professional regulating body. Despite fiscal pressures, recommendations for further strengthening of all systems that will support the quality of practice learning may continue to sustain practice learning support roles

Promoting the engagement of interpreters in Victorian health services

This study examined a range of evidence about the barriers to - and facilitators of - the engagement of interpreters as experienced by the health sector and its practitioners.Executive summaryEffective communication between health practitioners and their clients is fundamental to ensure the safety and quality of health care. For the thousands of Victorians with low English proficiency, effective communication in a health setting cannot be achieved without an appropriately skilled interpreter. Yet evidence shows that there are many occasions when credentialled interpreters are not engaged even though they should be, creating risks for both clients and health practitioners.Communication in health care settings allows the health practitioner to accurately understand the client’s health concerns and symptoms. It enables the client to be able to provide informed consent, understand diagnoses, receive information and understand risks associated with medication or treatment. Compliance with follow-up care also requires effective communication, as does the client’s ability to advise the practitioner of any adverse effects or other concerns regarding treatment.Around 4 per cent of Victorians speak English ‘not well’ or ‘not at all’. For these members of the community, effective communication in a health setting cannot be achieved without an interpreter who has the necessary range of skills to undertake the task competently and ethically.Professional interpreting has been a key discipline in the health sector in Victoria for over 30 years. However evidence shows that the engagement of credentialled interpreters is still not commensurate with the needs of the community. The issue is of concern nationally. A recent study found that a client with low English proficiency had only a one in one hundred chance of having a professional interpreter engaged when required in a primary care setting in Australia.Shortfalls in the provision of interpreting services constitute a major barrier to addressing inequalities in health care.This study examined a range of evidence about the barriers to - and facilitators of - the engagement of interpreters, as experienced by the health sector and its practitioners. Based on the evidence examined, recommendations are made in relation to:Strengthening legislation, organisational and professional guidelines and standards Closing gaps in Commonwealth funding for interpreters Ensuring Victorian Government funding for interpreters for state administered and funded health services is commensurate with needAdjusting the national funding formula for hospitals to provide weighting for the engagement of interpreters when patients have low English proficiencyEncouraging health services and tertiary institutions to routinely provide training on working with interpreters in professional development and professional practice education Promoting organisational development to ensure policy and practices are in place for effective engagement of credentialled interpreters to meet a variety of demands across language groups Developing initiatives to ensure the supply of interpreters in new-arrival languages and the capacity of the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) to test in these languages. The evidence also indicates that there is an insufficient supply of credentialled interpreters who have skills in working in complex health environments. There is a compelling case for a broad national workforce and industry review

Recursos digitales para la formación de intérpretes en ámbito sanitario: ¿un nuevo papel para los formadores?

In today’s dynamic world, countries with large immigrant population have to accelerate the curricular reform of the degrees in Translation and Interpreting to ensure that public service interpreting is carried out by qualified professionals. This premise inspired us to start a joint project with the primary aim of creating training materials for public service interpreters—in particular medical interpreters—with active Romanian and Spanish in their combination together with other European languages. As a first step, we (i) studied and compared the state of medical interpreter training in Romania and Spain and (ii) gathered and analysed good practices regarding medical interpreter training. This paper aims to present the characteristics of a relevant corpus of digital resources for medical interpreting training and underline their potential consequences for the trainer’s role. The selection is based on the country of origin and on the usefulness of the content. We classify, describe and analyse the materials systematically and suggest possible improvements.En el actual mundo dinámico, los países que acogen a un gran número de inmigrantes deben acelerar la reforma curricular de los grados en Traducción e Interpretación con el fin de garantizar que la interpretación en los servicios públicos es llevada a cabo por profesionales cualificados. Esta premisa nos impulsó a desarrollar un proyecto conjunto con el objetivo principal de diseñar materiales para la formación de intérpretes en los servicios públicos —principalmente, intérpretes en ámbito sanitario— cuyas combinaciones lingüísticas incluyan español, rumano y otras lenguas europeas. En la primera etapa, a) estudiamos y comparamos la situación de la formación de intérpretes en ámbito sanitario en Rumanía y España, y b) seleccionamos y analizamos buenas prácticas en cuanto a la formación de intérpretes en ámbito sanitario. Este artículo se propone presentar las características de un corpus relevante de recursos digitales para la formación de intérpretes en ámbito sanitario y poner de manifiesto las posibles consecuencias sobre el papel del formador. La selección se basa en el país de origen y la utilidad del contenido. Además, clasificamos, describimos y analizamos sistemáticamente los materiales y sugerimos posibles mejoras

Communication challenges for healthcare interpreters within a multicultural society: intercultural or ethical?

As one of the leading countries in community interpreting service provision, Australia provides a range of professional interpreting services within the public health system; interpreters who work in this system must be nationally accredited/certified and should abide by a professional code of ethics. Despite the national standard, in reality, healthcare interpreters still face various challenges due to different reasons. The main motivation for this study was to ascertain if intercultural communication challenges are paramount in healthcare interpreting settings and whether the interpreter is compelled to play the role of ‘cultural broker’, which goes counter to their prescribed role in the Code of Ethics (AUSIT, 2012). This thesis critically explores the concept of culture and intercultural communication as the first step to understanding its link to interpreting challenges. Using a mixed methods approach, this thesis explores the existence of intercultural issues that can cause interpreting challenges and the interpreters’ perceptions about the extent to which they can offer cultural brokerage. The data were collected via observations of KoreanEnglish interpreter-mediated medical encounters, semi-structured one-on-one interviews with the same interpreters who participated in the observations, and an online questionnaire with healthcare interpreters of any language combination working in Australia. The findings of the research showed that most of the challenges were not attributable to intercultural issues, but rather to cross-linguistic differences, deficient interpreting skills, ethical dilemmas, and interpreters’ working conditions. The results also found a lack of clarity from the interpreters about what they understand as constituting intercultural communication challenges and their need to act as cultural advisors. The results suggest that interpreters who were provided with the now outdated guidelines from the 1970s and early 1980s were more likely to perceive their role as that of a cultural advisor as well as an interpreter. Interpreters who were university trained in subsequent decades did not hold the same perceptions. The findings of this study clearly demonstrate that intercultural misunderstanding is not a critical issue for interpreters and that culture is often mistakenly blamed for interpreters’ unethical behaviour or incompetent interpreting. The study clarifies vague notions of culture and provides a more transparent taxonomy of interpreting challenges in healthcare settings