Effective clinical decision-making from Practice-Based Evidence

This is an ongoing research investigating the use of health information technologies (HIT) to improve clinical decision-making processes. Effective and timely clinical decision-making can lead to positive improvements in patient’s health outcome..

Quality evidence, quality decisions: Ways to improve security and privacy of EHR systems

The readily available and accessible large collection of electronic health records has encouraged an increasing interest on its secondary use. It is especially true for the approach of practice-based evidence where the secondary use of EHR data, collected during routine care, has the potential to improve healthcare professionals’ decision-making capabilities and effectiveness, and broadens their knowledge regarding treatments, medications and clinical conditions. Through effective and quality decision-making, healthcare professionals are able to deliver care that positively improves patient health outcomes in a cost-effective and safe manner. However, privacy and security breaches potentially impact the integrity of data captured in electronic health records, and this invalidates its perceived usefulness in providing evidence to support care. In order to design a secure and effective EHR system for the adoption of practice-based evidence approaches, recommendations for privacy and security measures can follow the security control protocol of preventive, detective and corrective control. Within each control, different security solutions are recommended so that security design is truly holistic

Electronic health records: Improvement to healthcare decision-making

Effective decision-making plays an important role in promoting optimal care delivery. Factors such as availability of data, timely access to data and organised information greatly influences the quality of decision-making as illustrated in a causal loop diagram. The contribution of practice-based evidence thus aims at structuring an approach where healthcare professionals can be consistently assisted in making effective decisions during routine primary care. Through a practice-based evidence ehealth scenario and a data-flow diagram of clinical systems in a public hospital from Singapore, we have identified the importance of leveraging electronic health records as ideal resources in the pursuit of improving healthcare decision-making

Data-Driven and Practice-Based Evidence

Decision making is such an integral aspect in health care routine that the ability to make the right decisions at crucial moments can lead to patient health improvements. Evidence-based practice, the paradigm used to make those informed decisions, relies on the use of current best evidence from systematic research such as randomized controlled trials. Limitations of the outcomes from RCT, such as “quantity” and “quality” of evidence generated, has lowered healthcare professionals' confidence in using EBP. An alternate paradigm of Practice-Based Evidence has evolved with the key being evidence drawn from practice settings. Through the use of health information technology, electronic health records capture relevant clinical practice “evidence”. A data-driven approach is proposed to capitalize on the benefits of EHR. The issues of data privacy, security and integrity are diminished by an information accountability concept. Data warehouse architecture completes the data-driven approach by integrating health data from multi-source systems, unique within the healthcare environment. </jats:p

Data-driven and practice-based evidence: Design and development of efficient and effective clinical decision support system

Decision-making is such an integral aspect in health care routine that the ability to make the right decisions at crucial moments can lead to patient health improvements. Evidence-based practice, the paradigm used to make those informed decisions, relies on the use of current best evidence from systematic research such as randomized controlled trials. Limitations of the outcomes from randomized controlled trials (RCT), such as “quantity” and “quality” of evidence generated, has lowered healthcare professionals’ confidence in using EBP. An alternate paradigm of Practice-Based Evidence has evolved with the key being evidence drawn from practice settings. Through the use of health information technology, electronic health records (EHR) capture relevant clinical practice “evidence”. A data-driven approach is proposed to capitalize on the benefits of EHR. The issues of data privacy, security and integrity are diminished by an information accountability concept. Data warehouse architecture completes the data-driven approach by integrating health data from multi-source systems, unique within the healthcare environment

Doctors' perception of the potential of EHR: a Singapore insight

The adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems has been widespread both locally and globally. The result of such adoptions has been the generation of huge amounts of digital healthcare data, assets which are valuable towards providing better care and management of patients. While studies conducted on secondary use of EHR data have found to be beneficial, such use is still in its infancy. As such, a complementary approach of Practice-based evidence (PBE) to decision making which leverages on EHR data as practical clinical evidence has been proposed. As part of evaluating the feasibility of PBE approach to decision making, this paper aims at studying the perception Singapore doctors have on the clinical benefits of using EHR systems and the usefulness of EHR data to assist with decision making. The findings from this study will aid in understanding the potential of utilising EHR as practical clinical evidence in the approach of PBE to decision making

Making sense of comments on YouTube educational videos: A self-directed learning perspective

Purpose Through the lens of self-directed theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate if social technologies such as YouTube will be viable to disseminate educational instructions and in the process empowering learners to take charge of their learning. Design/methodology/approach A total of 150 educational videos on YouTube were selected and 29,386 comments extracted using the authors’ customized extraction software application. Sentiment and qualitative content analyses were performed. Findings Results indicate that YouTube can play important roles in facilitating online self-directed learning (SDL) as the findings uncovered a variety of learning and social affordances of YouTube. However, caution should be exercised as high views and well-commented videos might not imply quality and credibility. This study concludes that YouTube generally provides a conducive a learning environment that affords learners the resources to meet their SDL objectives. Research limitations/implications To the best of knowledge, this is the first study that investigates SDL in social media by combining both qualitative content and sentiment analyses. The study shows that such a hybrid approach of combining two diverse analytical techniques provides an innovative means to make sense of comments expressed in social media. Practical implications The results will help educational institutions and policy-makers to craft better programs for public education and create policies to help self-directed learners in evaluating online video resources. Originality/value Despite a wealth of literature on the use of technologies to support learning, the majority of work done to date has dealt in the classroom context. Studies on SDL using educational content on YouTube are limited. Hence, this research contributes by providing insights on how educational institutions can move toward the direction of building collaborative digital learning platforms with relevant educational instruction and resources to enable users to participate in lifelong self-learning and education. </jats:sec

Investigating the Use of YouTube as a Self-Directed Learning Platform

Web 2.0 technologies have paved the way for self-directed online learning. YouTube, in particular, is a viable Web 2.0 platform that can be used to disseminate educational content and in the process empower users to take charge of their own learning. Through the lens of self-directed learning theory, we perform qualitative content analyses on comments contributed by learners after watching educational videos on YouTube. Results indicate that YouTube can play important roles in facilitating a self-directed learning platform.Accepted versio