Department of Medical Informatics and Medical Education Clinical Science Institute, NUI,Galway MMSc Informatics Course 2002-2003 Health Informatics has been defined as the study of how medical knowledge is created, shaped, shared and applied. (Enrico Coiera, 1997). It is a discipline that has grown in importance as the body of knowledge available to health care professionals has expanded and our knowledge of the practice of medicine becomes more sophisticated. Health informatics encompasses a wide range of different aspects of professional practice. For example an increasing awareness over the past 50 years of the complexity involved in making decisions in healthcare led to a whole domain of research and development in the field of probability and decision support. Another common application of health informatics is evidence-based medicine representing a scientific response to the great variability evident in clinical practice. Getting access to and using knowledge appropriately are skills, which are far more important today than heretofore. Thus the use of electronic databases and virtual sources of information has become all the more important. The health informatics courses provided by this department are based upon the assumptions inherent in the Coiera definition, thus there are portions of our courses that describe how knowledge is created and shaped as well as exploring how information is shared and applied. Each of our courses has a set of aims and objectives. If you examine the objectives for your course you will have a clear idea about what you will be expected to know or do by the end of the course. Read further and you will find our recommended reading list, a description of our assessment procedures etc. Finally you will find a timetable indicating teaching session titles and dates.
About the course This course has been designed to introduce you to the concepts of health informatics. Our intention is to give you the tools that you will need to find answers to clinical problems and to support your research endeavours. You will learn how information is created, interpreted, processed, stored and used in medicine. We will give you extensive practical exposure in the relevant aspects of health informatics All our lectures, practicals and course notes will be available on this website. We recommend that you print out our study guides and lectures and place them in a folder for revision. Using the website versions of our documents will allow you to use the hyperlinks function, which will give you access to other sites of interest and alternative learning materials. We hope that you will enjoy this course. We wish to invite your feedback on all aspects of this course in terms of both its content and delivery. Teaching methods The medical informatics course uses four different teaching methods, namely lectures, computer practicals, self paced learning using the www and study guides. The practical sessions have been designed to consolidate the knowledge learned in the lectures. All the lectures and practicals (complete with brief explanatory notes), appear in PowerPoint or Word format on the Medical Informatics website. The www lectures can be used for revision or to catch up on missed lectures. Each www lecture is linked to a study guide. The study guides are designed to guide your learning about the topic in question. They include recommended reading, links to other resources and self test exercises. We recommend 100% attendance at lectures and practicals. The www lectures and study guides have been designed to complement rather than replace the lecture and practical course. Thus a self-paced approach using our www resources will not provide an adequate explanation of the fundamental concepts.
MMSc Course Aims: a) This course will introduce students to the science of information management as applied to medicine b) Students will learn how to find, manage and appraise relevant information c) The students will develop their computer skills d) The students will learn about the complexity and uncertainty inherent in medicine Course objectives: By the end of this course the students will be able to demonstrate a thorough understanding of how medical information is created, interpreted, stored and used. The students will be able to demonstrate proficiency in the use of software applications relevant to medicine e.g. Microsoft Office applications, etc. The students will proficient in the use of Internet and on-line database resources to find relevant information The students will be able to appraise search findings in terms of relevance and quality The students will understand how doctors use information to make decisions The students will be aware of how telematics and the science of information will influence how they manage information when they qualify. By the end of the course the students will be able to demonstrate an awareness of the uncertainties inherent in medical practice and key competencies in managing uncertainty.
Basic competencies Your first step is to ensure that you have basic computer literacy. We will assume that you have these basic competencies already. If you are concerned that you may lack some of these skills, contact Ben Kanagaratnam (ben.kan@nuigalway.ie or extension 3016) for some one to one or small group tuition. Before you attempt this course you should be able to: Launch a computer application Save work to hard, floppy and network drives Print from a file using both a toolbar shortcut and a print menu Copy files from one drive to another Use standard word processing and spread sheet applications Use e-mail effectively, including sending attachments and graphics To access and navigate the world wide web using a web browser Health Informatics: Assessment: a) In course MCQ tests (These are formative and do not count toward the final mark) b) Evidence Based Case Report to be completed by the 31/1/2003 c) Final MCQ and Practical OSCE exam in February / March 2003 The Assessment in Health Informatics is distributed as follows: Final MCQ Computer OSCE 50 Marks 100 Marks MMSc 2002-2003 Reading List 1. How to Read a Paper, Patricia Greenhalgh. Second Edition, BMJ Books. 2001. 2. Evidence Based Medicine: How to practice and teach EBM. Second Edition D.L. Sackett, S.E. Straus, W.S. Richardson, W. Rosenberg, R.B. Haynes. Churchill Livingstone. 2000. 3. Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine, Coiera E. Oxford University Press; 1st edition 1997 4. Handbook of Medical Informatics Van Bemmell et al: Springer 1997 (also available online at: http://www.mieur.nl/mihandbook/r_3_3/handbook/home.htm) These books are all available from the James Hardiman Library in the Clinical Science Institute Building
Attendance We expect that students will attend at least 75% of all our practicals and lectures. Failure to do so will mean that the student in question may not qualify to sit their 4 th MB examination in medical informatics. Student Support If you are having difficulties with the volume of work in MMSc., or are experiencing problems which are affecting your ability to work, please take the opportunity to talk to a member of our staff at your earliest convenience. We can offer a lot of help with time management, study skills, work planning. What will you learn? 1. The course will introduce you to both basic and advanced computer skills using such applications as Microsoft Word, Excel and Access. You will learn how to manage your files and how to get the best out of your computer. 2. The course will teach you how to find and save information from Internet and online database resources. 3. The course will teach you how to appraise your literature search findings. 4. You will also learn about how the results of research can be implanted in clinical practice. You will be introduced to medical informatics concepts such as decision analysis, decision support, electronic patient records and telemedicine.
Course Timetable The medical informatics course for the Masters of Medical Science Programme is grouped into 4 modules. Module 1 : Module 2: Module 3: Morning Lectures: Medical Informatics and Medical Knowledge. Medical Decision Making and Probability. Framing Questions, Finding Answers, Implementing Findings. Patient Record Systems and Telemedicine The Medical Informatics course will be delivered on Wednesday evenings between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Teaching will commence on the 9 th of October and will end in the winter term on date 18 th of December. Teaching will recommence on the 8 th of January 2003. Teaching will end on the 19 th of February 2003. Your assessment will be held on a date to be announced in March 2003. For details of your assessment please see the web page labelled Masters of Medical Science Assessment. You will note in the module tables that the course is broken down into tutorials, practicals and study guides. Face to face teaching sessions will take the form of tutorials and practicals. The tutorials are available on our website via the Masters of Medical Science web page. Some have explanatory notes in addition to the PowerPoint slides, (click on the notes view option). The study guides are again available via our website and are designed to guide your learning between teaching sessions. The modules (18 teaching sessions) will be delivered on Wednesday evenings between 6pm and 7.15pm, followed by biostatistics till 8.15pm. The two morning lectures will be delivered in the autumn term. You will need to do approximately three hours of additional reading, Internet searching etc. to meet the requirements of this course. You will be assessed on the content of tutorials, practicals and study guides, so it is very worthwhile to take time to go through all the material.
Dates TBA TBA Morning lectures Electronic Patient Records Telemedicine & its Place in Medicine Module 1 Medical Informatics & Knowledge Dates Tutorials Practicals List of Study Guides 9-10-02 Introduction to New Computer Skill What is Informatics? Course Assessment 16-10-02 The Nature of Medical An Introduction to Medical Knowledge Knowledge Microsoft Word 23-10-02 Evidence and Advanced Microsoft Scepticism Scepticism Word 30-10-02 Medical Facts & Medical Prejudice Introduction to Microsoft Excel Facts & Prejudice in Medicine Module 2 Medical Decision Making and Probability. Dates Tutorials Practicals List of Study Guides 6-11-02 The Diagnostic Process Advanced Microsoft Excel The Diagnostic Process 13-11-02 An Introduction to An Introduction to Heuristics Heuristics Microsoft Access 20-11-02 Probability in Intermediate Baye s Theorem Medicine Microsoft Access 27-11-02 Interpretation Constructing a Medical Database How Doctors Use Information Module 3 Framing Questions, Finding Answers Dates Tutorials Practicals List of Study Guides 4-12-02 Understanding the Basic Internet Finding Answers Internet Searching 11-12-02 Medical Use of the Internet Advanced Internet Searching Medical Use of the Internet 18-11-02 An Introduction to Medical Databases Basic Database Searching Framing Clinical Questions 8-01-03 Choosing the Appropriate Databases Advanced Database Searching Planning Effective Online Database 15-01-03 Critical Appraisal 1 Appraising the Structure of Different Papers 22-01-03 Critical Appraisal 2 The Analysis of Longitudinal & Cross-sectional Surveys Searches IMRAD Surveys
29-01-03 Critical Appraisal 3 Appraising Papers which explore aetiology and prognosis 05-02-03 Critical Appraisal 4 Appraising Randomised Controlled Trials 12-02-03 Critical Appraisal 5 Appraising Screening & Audit Literature 19-02-03 Critical Appraisal 6 Appraising Qualitative Research Papers Aetiology & Prognosis. RCTs Screening & Audit Qualitative Research