Economics in a week

Wow - what a whirlwind of thought provoking discussions.  Just when I thought I understood the concepts, the rules and lines kept crossing.  But, given all the information we heard and tried to absorb, the importance of what is being taught can't be over emphasized.  As we deploy electronic health records, the requirement and push to implement is coming from the government but health care organizations who have not pre-planned for this time are now faced with many of the evaluations, calculations and analysis on what and how much to buy.  So, not only does informatics look into data and hopefully help us improve outcomes in healthcare, it also expands into multiple areas including economics.  Vendors will sell you as much as you want but not necessarily help guide you in the appropriate selections for your needs.  How much is enough?  Where do the benefits and costs cross lines and it becomes more costly for less benefit?  I will have to investigate the cost - efficiency analysis methods as Dr. Johnson pointed out because this is where health care organizations are always looking for answers.

The assignment for this week on evaluating the article has had me rewriting it twice now.  I can't decide if the study was good, fair or bad.  You can argue several points in the article but what I have found in second guessing myself is learning more of the terms and thinking more about the concepts.  Probably the most important concept, in my opinion, is a consistent perspective.  Even when trying to write a simple paper, keeping the perspective the same can be challenging so I can understand how studies mix and match different perspectives but now truly understand the dangers of reporting data under differing perspectives.

Dr. Johnson is so correct in his statements about the profession of informatics making the future decisions on electronic health records.  Of course we can't be experts in all aspects of the field but just understanding the complexity of evaluating an electronic solution, evaluating what is needed and then making sound business decisions starts an organization off in the right direction.

Posted by   Debbie Carter