Health Analytics Lead to More Questions: A Comorbidity Lens Approach

As we amass more data, we have an opportunity to analyze a pseudo-population to better understand differences in health across groups. For example, comorbidity is a medical condition when a patient develops more than one disease simultaneously. The way patients belonging to different population groups develop comorbidities can have a major impact on their health outcomes. Therefore, there is a strong need to know these differences in comorbidities across population groups. In this study, we apply the grounded theory methodology lens to compare the comorbidities across population groups. First, we create a comprehensive network for each population group and then compare their structural properties. This leads to developing multiple research questions that need to be explored in the future research. The interesting findings and theoretical implications are discussed

Electronic Health Record Systems Investment Valuation: A System Dynamics Approach

Implementing Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems is on the agenda for most of the healthcare organizations in the next few years. Decision makers need to do a cost-benefit analysis to value EHR investments. The major question for decision makers is what the benefits of such systems are. We propose the use of System Dynamics (SD) to measure the benefits of EHR systems. A System dynamics approach as a predictive tool maps complex relationships among the healthcare processes into a model by which one can dynamically measure the effect of any changes in the parameters over time. The System dynamics model’s objective is to analyze the impact of EHRs in a healthcare setting during and after its implementation. Simulation of EHR implementations using system dynamics model produces useful data on the benefits of EHRs that are hard to obtain through empirical data collection methods. The results of an SD model then can be transformed into economic values to estimate financial indices

A Fisheye View Based System for Identifying Telecommunications Investment Decision Factors

This paper describes a system in development that determines a fisheye view of the factors for a telecommunications investment decision. The computer science community has explored the fisheye view as a technique to better organize information and reduce information overload. In our application, the fisheye view focuses on the factors that are important for a particular type of investment but also provides a peripheral and less detailed suggestion for the factors that are not as important but should be kept in perspective

Information Extraction from Interviews to Obtain Tacit Knowledge: A Text Mining Application

One of the most challenging knowledge management tasks is to obtain, summarize, and present tacit knowledge. It is important to develop approaches for creating insightful summaries from the knowledge obtained. In this paper, we present different information extraction methods for summarizing interview transcripts. Manual, semi-automatic, and automatic text analysis are evaluated to transform tacit knowledge into explicit form and to substantially reduce the time required to perform this transformation. These approaches are described in the context of a real application

WWW Site Design Using Fisheye Views: An Empirical Study

In many contexts, decision-making situations call for examination of local detail without losing awareness of global context. Knowledge will be more useful if organized and presented accordingly. Fisheye view methods are one way of effective knowledge presentation and have been used in displaying various knowledge structures. This study explores an application of the fisheye view concept on World Wide Web site design. A related experiment and following empirical tests are described

Visualization Support for Managing Information Overload in the Web Environment

This research focuses on the information overload problem on the Internet, and proposes a potential remedy to the overload encountered while searching the Web. We developed a system that makes use of clustering and visualization for browsing the results of a typical web search. We built two different (full and fisheye) zooming capabilities into our system, and empirically compared their success with each other as well as with the traditional non-visual presentation method through an experiment. We hypothesize that the visual systems will lead to higher success than the text-based system, and that the fisheye zooming system will lead to higher success than the full zoom system. The results of our exploratory test provide partial support for our hypotheses. This empirical support and the comments made by the participants in the experiments suggest that our design ideas are promising, and it is worthwhile to further investigate the use of clustering and visualization mechanisms for reducing information overload

A Design Science Approach to Virtual World Implementation of Trade Fairs

Virtual world technology platforms, which allow users from distant places to congregate virtually for entertainment or other purposes, are growing into useful tools for businesses and consumers. Besides other applications, the concept of same-time, different-place gatherings can also be used to organize virtual trade fairs that are complements or extensions of physical tradeshows. This paper describes a design-science approach to the development of a virtual world technolo-gy platform specifically aimed at creating virtual tradeshow events that bring show attendees and exhibitors together. After describing the design and development of the virtual world tech-nology platform and some of its applications, we report its implementation in a career fair setting organized to facilitate interaction between would-be employers and students at a university.. We also conducted a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of this virtual event by surveying employers and attendees. Although the event effectiveness is rated aver-age, this exploratory analysis reveals that the virtual events are quite efficient in terms of use of resources. The overall effort to develop the virtual events is minimal as compared to the number of additional attendees that can participate in the event, reducing the cost per new lead gener-ated. As the technology evolves further to enhance richness of the interactions, these virtual events will become major applications of virtual worlds. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol4/iss2/4

The Emerging Distributed Information Systems Infrastructure: Some Implications for ISResearch and Teaching

The rapidly evolving Worldwide Information Infrastructure (WII) (Neumann, 1994), of which the Internet is arguably the most visible component, marks the emergence of the information superhighway. The WII is very broad in scope and may be seen as a worldwide super-set of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). The NII consists of: (1) thousands of interconnected, interoperable telecommunication networks; (2) computer systems, televisions, fax machines, and other information appliances ; (3) software, information services, and information databases (e.g., digital libraries ); and (4) trained people who can build, maintain, and operate these systems. In the future, the NII will enable all Americans to get the information they need, when they need it, where they need it, for an affordable price (https://WWW.NTIA.DOC.GOV/). In this paper, we use the term Distributed Information Systems Infrastructure (DISI) for a restricted subsystem of the WII consisting of all networked computers and the distributed information systemsthey represent. This paper proposes a framework to organize and view the major components of the DISI and suggests a classification scheme for information tasks. The paper identifies and examines some key issues relating to the content and process of ISresearch and ISteaching. Why can\u27t existing ISframeworks be used directly to study the DISI? Classical ISframeworks have been invaluable in guiding ISwork in the last two decades, but they were developed with traditional ISin mind and fall short in capturing the unique aspects of the emerging DISI. It is clear that the DISI significantly differs from conventional ISin characteristics as well as in the types of opportunities it offers and the consequent risks

Take Control of Interruptions in Your Life: Lessons from Routine Activity Theory of Criminology

Steeped among the items on the dark side of information technology are personal technology interruptions. Past research has examined the negative impact of technology interruptions; however, the factors that are responsible for the increasing rate of interruptions are rarely discussed. In this study, by adapting the criminology theory of Routine Activity Theory (RAT), we propose three factors that lead to an interruption: number of interruption sources, absence of guardians, and individual targetness. Results from a survey of mobile users show that combinations of these factors have increased the interruption rate in our lives. Interestingly, just having more apps on the phones does not increase interruptions; it is a combination of the factors noted above