Research Methodology (Dr. Greenes)

Dr. Greenes certainly explored a lot of models to predict outcomes from ED throughput to medication effects and MRSA examples.  Biomedical informatics certainly opens up a wide area of research opportunities.  In the realm of EMRs, there is a lot of information not known.  For hospitals, one goal of implementing an EMR would be to utilize this technology to identify early signs and symptoms to help diagnose or suggest a possible cause and help "predict" with realiability of outcomes.  For example, if your blood pressure is low, pulse rate is high, WBC count is high and you have a fever - what things should be considered?  It becomes a decision tree of possible options.  This example is rather broad but adding additional diagnostic tests and results might quickly lead to a diagnosis and earlier treatment. The presentation of these items to a clinician is tricky.  Phyisicans have had a lot of education and have spent many years in school to make these diagnoses but technology utilized correctly can augment and speed up the recognition of conditions to begin appropraite treatment earlier.  The cognitive science of utilizing technology to assist in early detection and the adoption of the decision support by physicians and clinicians is yet another broad research area to be explored. 

Needless to say, the Biomedical Informatics field is rich with data but our challenge is making sense of the data and pulling it together in various models of reality.  This is a very exciting field and my research challenge will be to become more focused on a detailed problem.  I'm more of a global visionary and see things at a much broader scale so trying to establish a good problem / question to answer for research will be one of my most challenging steps in research.

Posted by  Debbie Carter