PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

E Ammenwerth

Publications and source records attributed to E Ammenwerth.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Systems analysis in health care: framework and example.

OBJECTIVES: Due to the high complexity of structures and processes in health care, thorough systems analyses in health care run the risk of becoming very complex and difficult to handle. Therefore, we aimed to support systematic systems analysis in health care by developing a comprehensive framework that presents and describes potential areas of analysis. METHODS: A framework for systems analysis in health care was developed and applied in a health care setting. To provide a clear structure, the framework describes the potential views and levels of systems analyses in a health care environment. RESULTS: The framework comprises five views (roles and responsibilities, information processing and tools, communication, business processes, teams structure and cooperation) and five levels of analysis (overall organization, organizational unit, staff member, role, task). The framework was successfully applied in an analysis of the structures and processes of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the University Medical Center Heidelberg. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed comprehensive framework aims to structure the views and levels of systems analysis in the complex health care environment. Our first experiences support the usefulness of such a framework.

Communication↗
PubMed2002

Medical Imaging Informatics and Medical Informatics: opportunities and constraints. Findings from the IMIA yearbook of Medical Informatics 2002.

OBJECTIVES: The Yearbook of Medical Informatics is published annually by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and contains a selection of recent excellent papers on medical informatics research (http://www.yearbook.uni-hd.de). The 2002 Yearbook of Medical Informatics took as its theme the topic of Medical Imaging Informatics. In this paper, we will summarize the contributions of medical informatics researchers to the development of medical imaging informatics, discuss challenges and opportunities of imaging informatics, and present the lessons learned from the IMIA Yearbook 2002. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Medical informatics researchers have contributed to the development of medical imaging methods and systems since the inception of this field approximately 40 years ago. The Yearbook presents selected papers and reviews on this important topic. In addition, as usual, the Yearbook 2002 also contains a variety of papers and reviews on other subjects relevant to medical informatics, such as Bioinformatics, Computer-supported education, Health and clinical management, Health information systems, Knowledge processing and decision support, Patient records, and Signal processing.

Computer-Assisted Instruction↗
PubMed2001

Nursing process documentation systems in clinical routine--prerequisites and experiences.

Documentation of the nursing process is an important, but often neglected part of clinical documentation. Paper-based systems have been introduced to support nursing process documentation. Frequently, however, problems, such as low quality and high writing efforts, are reported. However, it is still unclear if computer-based documentation systems can reduce these problems. At the Heidelberg University Medical Center, computer-based nursing process documentation projects began in 1998. A computer-based nursing documentation system has now been successfully introduced on four wards of three different departments, supporting all six phases of the nursing process. The introduction of the new documentation system was accompanied by systematic evaluations of prerequisites and consequences. In this paper, we present preliminary results of this evaluation, focusing on prerequisites of computer-based nursing process documentation. We will discuss in detail the creation and use of predefined nursing care plans as one important prerequisite for computer-based nursing documentation. We will also focus on acceptance issues and on organizational and technical issues.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Strategic information management plans: the basis for systematic information management in hospitals.

Information management in hospitals is a complex task. In order to reduce complexity, we distinguish strategic, tactical, and operational information management. This is essential, because each of these information management levels views hospital information systems from different perspectives, and therefore uses other methods and tools. Since all these management activities deal only in part with computers, but mainly with human beings and their social behavior, we define a hospital information system as a sociotechnical subsystem of a hospital. Without proper strategic planning it would be a matter of chance, if a hospital information system would fulfil the information strategies goals. In order to support strategic planning and to reduce efforts for creating strategic plans, we propose a practicable structure.

Hospital Information Systems↗
PubMed2001

Evaluation of clinical information systems. What can be evaluated and what cannot?

The evaluation of clinical information systems is essential as they are increasingly used in clinical routine and may even influence patient outcome on the basis of reminder functions and decision support. Therefore we try to answer three questions in this paper: what to evaluate; how to evaluate; how to interpret the results. Those key questions lead to the discussion of goals, methods and results of evaluation studies in a common context. We will compare the objectivist and the subjectivist evaluation approach and illustrate the evaluation process itself in some detail, discussing different phases of software development and potential evaluation techniques in each phase. We use four different practical examples of evaluation studies that were conducted in various settings to demonstrate how defined evaluation goals may be achieved with a limited amount of resources. This also illustrates advantages, limitations and costs of the different evaluation methods and techniques that may be used when evaluating clinical information systems.

Decision Support Systems, Clinical↗
PubMed2001

Digital Libraries and Recent Medical Informatics Research. Findings from the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2001.

The Yearbook of Medical Informatics is published annually by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and contains a selection of recent excellent papers on medical informatics research (http://www.med.uni-heidelberg.de/mi/yearbook/index.htm). The special topic of the just published Yearbook 2001 is "Digital Libraries and Medicine". Digital libraries have changed dramatically and will continue to change the way we work with medical knowledge. The selected papers present recent research and new results on digital libraries. As usual, the Yearbook 2001 also contains a variety of papers on other subjects relevant to medical informatics, such as Electronic Patient Records, Health Information Systems, Health and Clinical Management, Decision Support Systems, Education, as well as Image and Signal Processing. This paper will briefly introduce the contributions covering digital libraries and will show how medical informatics research contributes to this important topic.

Humans↗
PubMed2001

A randomized evaluation of a computer-based nursing documentation system.

A two-month randomized, controlled trial based on 60 patients has been performed on a ward of the Department of Psychiatry at Heidelberg University Medical Center, Germany, to investigate the influence of computer-based nursing documentation on time investment for documentation, quality of documentation and user acceptance. Time measurements, questionnaires, documentation analysis and interviews were used to compare patients documented with the computer-based system (PIK group) with the control group (patients documented with the paper-based system). The results showed the advantages and disadvantages of computer-based nursing documentation. Time needed for nursing care planning was lower in the PIK group. Some formal aspects of quality were considerably better in the PIK group. On the other hand, time required for documentation of tasks and for report writing was greater in the PIK group. User acceptance increased significantly during the study. The interviews indicated a positive influence of PIK on the cooperation between nurses and physicians.

Attitude to Computers↗
PubMed2001

Analysis and modelling of the multi-professional treatment process: preliminary results.

This paper presents first results of a research project aimed at improving co-operative work initiatives in hospitals. A holistic analysis of the treatment process is presented as a precondition for process reengineering, quality measurements and improvement of multi-professional co-operation. Treatment process modelling attempts within the last years have concentrated on specialised points of views, such as business process modelling or communication modelling. In contrast, we have developed a framework consisting of several views of the treatment process. We tested our framework in a broad system analysis within the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Heidelberg University Hospitals. Our preliminary results support the framework. Weaknesses were described precisely in both the field of organisational procedures and information management.

Comprehensive Health Care↗
PubMed2001

Systematic evaluation of computer-based nursing documentation.

The documentation of the nursing process is an important, but often neglected part of clinical documentation. Paper-based systems have been introduced to support nursing process documentation. Frequently, however, problems, such as low quality, are reported and it is still unclear if computer-based documentation systems can reduce these problems. We therefore introduced a computer-based nursing documentation system on four wards of the University Hospitals of Heidelberg. We systematically evaluated its preconditions and its effects in a pre-test post-test intervention study. We combined objective data (e.g., based on quality checklists) with subjective data drawn from questionnaires and interviews. In this paper, we present preliminary results, focussing on detailed results from the first two wards.

Attitude to Computers↗
PubMed2000

Mobile information and communication tools in the hospital.

Mobile information and communication systems in clinical routine have the potential to greatly improve communication, facilitate information access, eliminate double documentation, and increase quality of patient care in the long run. Projects to date have focused, for the most part, on highly specialized applications of the mobile computer. In our research project, 'Cooperative Problem Solving in Health Care', we have, among other things, designed a multifunctional mobile information and communication assistant. A prototype version of this system was implemented. This article outlines the close-to-reality evaluation of our prototype in a 1-week simulation study in a Heidelberg University hospital. We describe methods, aims, design and results of the simulation study, as well as discuss our methodology and the results we have obtained. We argue that the diverse requirements of different professional groups cannot be fulfilled by a single multifunctional device and propose, therefore, a 'multi-device mobile computer architecture'. Finally, we present consequences for the future computing infrastructure.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2000

Analysis and modeling of the treatment process characterizing the cooperation within multi-professional treatment teams.

We would like to introduce several aspects of the analysis and modeling of the treatment process characterizing the cooperation within multi-professional treatment teams. We will determine what is meant by a treatment process in order to then look at five views and four levels of their description. We will introduce possible methods for surveying and describing it. Currently an extensive analysis of the current state of the treatment process and of the weaknesses is underway in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Heidelberg University Medical Center.

Computer Simulation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A compendium of information processing functions in nursing. Development and pilot study.

Before introducing computers or other tools to support nursing care, it is important to have a clear picture of the information processing functions required in this area. This article presents a compendium of information processing functions used in nursing. This compendium can be used to support management of information systems in planning and monitoring nursing information systems. The article describes the development of the first version of this compendium and its evaluation in a pilot study. The results of this evaluation show that the compendium can be used to assess the quality of information processing in nursing.

Germany↗