Healthcare Informatics Research Essay

Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay

Include intro, a currently emerging healthcare technology system, goals for the product, data supporting the product, healthcare settings (including education), conclusion.Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay

You should carry out an investigation about one of the technologies used in Health Informatics, for example: EHR, CPOE, EMR, CDSS, eMAR, or electronic devices used in Health Care

5 pages (excluding cover and reference pages)

APA formatted paper

3 References within 5 years

Understanding the intellectual structure of health informatics is crucial to the whole
health informatics community. In general, the intellectual structure of a discipline bespeaks the
topics and paradigms selected by a field, the research themes that emerge over time, the thought
leaders who direct the efforts of its various research programs, and the relationships between
various structural components. Gaining deep insights into the intellectual structure of a
discipline can lead to defining moments for a community of scholars (Kuhn 1962). Whereas this
structure often reifies what is already known in the knowledge base or else increments (Kuhn
1962), it can also shape the epistemologies that frame knowledge development work and alter
the philosophical basis of these efforts (Crane 1972). Structural knowledge can help scholars set
their future research directions by seeing patterns of work that have existed in the past and noting
trend lines into the future (Platt 1964).Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay
Although in-depth intellectual structure analyses have been conducted for the entire field
of information systems (IS) in journals such as MIS Quarterly and Management Science (Culnan
1986; Culnan 1987), IS research intellectual structure analyses are notably lacking in the
growing discipline of health informatics (HI) and its sub-discipline health information
technology (HIT). Given that HI literature reviews and citation analyses have been conducted in
HI journals and the HIT literature has been reviewed in information systems (IS) journals
(Chiasson and Davidson 2004; Gallivan and Tao 2014; Raghupathi and Nerur 2010; Romanow
et al. 2012), such articles are either becoming dated (especially in the case of many HI analyses)
and/or use only one primary method (e.g., citation analysis, social network analysis, or latent
2
semantic analysis). We contend that future progress is dependent on: (1) a more complete
understanding of how the HI and HIT disciplines have grown and evolved in the context of IS
research over the past two decades, (2) multi-method analyses of the structural relationships
between and cohesion of research themes and thought leaders (we use citation and co-citation
analysis, social network analysis, and latent semantic analysis), and (3) leveraging these
intellectual structure analyses to guide future research.
The first essay of the current dissertation represents such an effort of more recent, more
complete, and more thorough analyses of HI and, particularly, HIT intellectual structures.
Deeper understanding of the evolving intellectual structures of HI and HIT provides a means by
which to further expand, consolidate, and renew the discipline in a systemic and informed
manner while also theoretically contributing back to coordinate and reference disciplines. Given
that an in-depth intellectual structural analysis of HIT focused on research in top IS journals had
not appeared before our study, we fill an important research gap in this essay. Using the multiple
statistical methods including citation and co-citation analysis, social network analysis (SNA),
and latent semantic analysis (LSA), we show how HIT research has emerged in IS journals and
distinguished itself from the larger HI context.
The second essay of the current dissertation zooms in one specific emerging HIT research Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay
theme, online health communities, which are defined as social networks where people with
common health interests can share experiences, request questions, seek or provide emotional
support (Eysenbach et al. 2004). A 2011 national survey conducted in the U.S. by the Pew
Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 80% of U.S. Internet users have
looked for health information online, 34% of Internet users have read others’ commentary or
experience about health issues online, and 18% have sought online to find others with similar
3
health concerns (Fox 2011). A more recent national survey by the same project found that 72%
of U.S. Internet users have looked online for health information within the past year (Fox and
Duggan 2013). Another survey showed that social media sites are emerging as a potential source
of online health information, with 42% Internet users consulting online rankings or reviews and
32% using social networking sites for health (Thackeray et al. 2013). These statistics suggest
that online health communities, or the Internet in general, are becoming a common source for
health information seeking. As an inseparable part of the personalized preventative medicine
(Swan 2012), online health communities are changing the way patients treat and/or manage their
health.
Two major purposes of participants joining online health communities are to seek health
information regarding self-management options and to receive emotional support by knowing
that their peers care (Hajli et al. 2014). People can discuss conditions, symptoms, and treatments
as well as seek and provide health-related advice and emotional support from each other.
Moreover, advanced services such as posing questions to physicians, quantified self-tracking of
health conditions, and clinical trials access can also be provided to consumers (Swan 2009).
When individuals are sharing their personal health information with other online community
peers, they are “crowdsourcing” the collective wisdom of a huge number of community members
(Eysenbach 2008). This can significantly lower the cost of health care and alleviate burdens on
the health care system. Ultimately, online health communities open up new opportunities for the
health care industry to obtain the “triple aim” (Berwick et al. 2008, p. 760) including: (1) cutting
costs, (2) enhancing the individual’s experience of care, and (3) improving the health of
populations. The wide use of online health communities leads naturally to the need to better
understand the social relations in this context.Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay

Permalink: https://eaziessay.com/healthcare-infor…s-research-essay/
4
The rise of health social networks such as PatientsLikeMe, DailyStrength, and MedHelp
provides unique opportunities for research focusing on healthcare decision support and patient
empowerment (Miller 2012). User-generated content on these online communities is accessible
not only to the patients and caregivers but also researchers. Specifically, digital trace data on the
online communities are available for scholars to better address more complicated research
questions proposed. Digital trace data are records of activities that are undertaken through an
online information systems (Howison et al. 2011). Here, a trace represents an event occurred in
the past. Following proper and rigorous ways, digital trace data can be used to measure
theoretically interesting constructs (Howison et al. 2011). With the abundant big digital trace
data being generated by online health communities, scholars are able to obtain insights into
highly detailed, contextualized, and rich contexts, thereby obtaining insights that address the
heterogeneous needs of individual patients. However, there is a lack of research in IS field that
empirically addresses this phenomenon and its underlying theoretical relationships via analyses
of big health data.
The second essay of the dissertations tends to fill such knowledge gap by probing the
impact of social support provided and consumed in online health communities on individual
health promotion outcomes through the analyses of big online health digital trace data.
Contributions of this research not only extend current understanding of micro-mechanisms of
social support exchange in online health communities as well as the catalytic role of social
support in health promoting, but also shed light on the design and management of such online
health communities.
5
1.2 Scope of Inquiry
This dissertation follows the multi-paper model and is comprised of two separate essays
that respectively investigate: (1) the intellectual structure of the discipline health informatics (HI)
and its sub-discipline health information technology (HIT), and (2) an emerging and interesting
area of HIT research that explores the impact of social support on health promotion outcomes in
online health communities. Table 1.1 summarizes the key characteristics of the two essays.

Scientific disciplines are self-defined and self-evolving to a large extent, but
acknowledging that disciplines develop organically does not diminish the continuing need to
more fully understand the underlying dynamics of their intellectual structures. Intellectual
structures bespeak the topics (including paradigms) that a discipline selects, the sub-disciplines
and sub-communities that emerge, the thought leaders who direct the efforts of its various
research programs, and the relationships between these various structural components. One such
discipline, the discipline of health informatics (HI), is not only a vitally important discipline for
societies worldwide, but is also an enormous field that manifests itself in the natural and social
sciences as well as in the information systems (IS) and applied disciplines including
professionals such as physicians, nurses, paramedics, and so forth.
A subset of the HI field especially important to IS scholars is identified here as health
information technology (HIT). The current study analyzes the intellectual underpinnings of the
field of HI and, in particular, focuses on its sub-discipline HIT. Using the multiple statistical Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay
methods including citation and co-citation analysis, social network analysis (SNA), and latent
semantic analysis (LSA), we show how HIT research has emerged in IS journals and

1 Chen, L., Baird, A., and Straub, D. 2015. “The Evolving Intellectual Structure of the Health Informatics Discipline:
A Multi-Method Investigation of a Rapidly-Growing Scientific Field,” Working Paper, Georgia State University.
7
distinguished itself from the larger HI context. The research themes, intellectual leadership,
cohesion of these themes and networks of researchers, and journal presence revealed in our
longitudinal intellectual structure analyses foretell how, in particular, these HI and HIT fields
have evolved to date and also how they could evolve in the future. Our findings identify which
research streams are central (versus peripheral) and which are cohesive (as opposed to disparate).
Suggestions for vibrant areas of future research emerge from our analyses.
Keywords: health informatics (HI); health information technology (HIT); intellectual structure;
social network analysis (SNA); citation analysis; co-citation analysis; latent semantic
analysis (LSA)
8
2.1 Introduction
A discipline or field of study is a community of scholars and teachers who develop
expertise in a self-defined domain of knowledge (Abbott 1988). A discipline is distinguished, in
part, by the power that this group exercises over expert matter, the more abstract term for such a
community being a “profession” (Abbott 1988). Combining the terms leads us to the concept of
an academic professional discipline which lays claim to knowledge in particular intellectual
domains. Intellectual knowledge within domains grows and evolves over time, often in an
organic manner, as geographically and temporally dispersed research is conducted by researchers
who may or may not be familiar with the published, forthcoming, and/or ongoing works of
others. Therefore, an “intellectual structure” underlying a discipline develops over time, as
research topics, themes, and thought leaders emerge (and cohere and/or fragment), but the
underlying structure between these elements is often difficult to identify without comprehensive
analyses.
While in-depth intellectual structure analyses have been conducted for the entire field of
information systems (IS) in journals such as MIS Quarterly and Management Science (Culnan
1986; Culnan 1987), IS research intellectual structure analyses are notably lacking in the
growing discipline of health informatics (HI) and its sub-discipline health information
technology (HIT). Granted, HI literature reviews and citation analyses have been conducted in
HI journals and the HIT literature has been reviewed in IS journals (see Table 2.1 for a
summary), but such articles are either becoming dated (especially in the case of many HI
analyses) and/or use only one primary method (e.g., citation analysis, social network analysis, or
latent semantic analysis). We contend that future progress is dependent on: (1) a more complete
understanding of how the HI and HIT disciplines have grown and evolved in the context of IS  Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay
9
research over the past two decades (our data span January 1992 to April of 2013), (2) multimethod analyses of the structural relationships between and cohesion of research themes and
thought leaders (we use citation and co-citation analysis, social network analysis, and latent
semantic analysis), and (3) leveraging these intellectual structure analyses to guide future
research. Therefore, we contribute a more recent, more complete, and more thorough analysis of
HI and, particularly, HIT intellectual structures.
The intellectual structure of a discipline bespeaks the topics (including paradigms)
selected by a field, the themes that emerge, the thought leaders who direct the efforts of its
various research programs, and the relationships between various structural components.
Gaining deep insights into the intellectual structure of a discipline can lead to defining moments
for a community of scholars (Kuhn 1962). Whereas this structure often reifies what is already
known in the knowledge base or else increments (Kuhn 1962), it can also shape the
epistemologies that frame knowledge development work and alter the philosophical basis of
these efforts (Crane 1972). Structural knowledge can help scholars set their future research
directions by seeing patterns of work that have existed in the past and noting trend lines into the
future (Platt 1964).
Many authors see intellectual structures as a critical aspect of the history of a field,
specifically, in this case, an intellectual history (Abbott 1999; Grafton 2006). Understanding the
intellectual development of a discipline is of great importance for researchers in that it allows
them to more effectively conduct studies based on prior research (Culnan 1986; Platt 1964). It
can also aid in identifying gaps in the literature and subsequently forging research projects or
programs that address these gaps (Platt 1964).Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay

Health informatics is the bridging of computer science, information and the health care field. This interdisciplinary field can be applied to a range of medical fields such as nursing, biomedicine, medicine and subspecialties such as immunology (immunoinformatics). Informatics not only has roles to play in day-to-day areas of immunology such as data storage/retrieval, decision support, standards and electronic health care records but also in research and education such as data mining and simulation systems (Coiera, 2002). Informatics and more specifically, health informatics first started being used in in the late 1950s with the rise of computers (Ho, 2010). Technologies such as computers allowed practitioners and researches

Decision support systems are ideally interactive systems that allow the decision making physician to come to the conclusion based on a host of information pulled from data bases, personal knowledge, predesigned modals etc. Decision support systems have many benefits such as; patient-time efficiency, speed up process of decision making, promotes learning and training, reveals new approaches in thought process, generates new evidence in support of a decision and encourages exploration and discovery of the decision maker (Bosworth, York, Kotansky, & Berman, 2011). Although these systems require end user expertise, correct inputs and appropriate modals, they also require vast and exstenive information. Immunoinformatics are used to compile vast amounts of data for the immunology field (De Groot A. , Immunomics: discovering new targets for vaccines and therapeutics , 2006). This data includes genetic mapping, protein structures, cytometry data and many other data pools needed by immunologists to make correct decisions.  Healthcare Informatics Research And Innovation Essay