Research Methods in Health IT

The lecture by Dr. Parker brings sensibility back to BMI for me. Understanding the value of NLP, genomics and other concepts that are not inherently logical to me, it's good for me to be re-grounded by a lecture that I can more easily relate to.

Intermountain Healthcare is a model for all to learn from, if not execute. The integration engine in HL7 format, the data dictionary that seems to utilize ontologies in a logical format, and the enterprise data warehouse seems to solve the problems with EHR's (and perhaps EMR's) that we have discussed so often. They're all common sense pieces to the unsolved puzzle of universality and connectivity. However, as Dr. Parker indicated, solutions become complicated when politics and market share are involved. My experience has shown that the medical field is a magnet for open palms hoping to "cash in" on a captive audience that must pay to comply. Until now, I had not really viewed this as a large obstacle. Overall, I found the lecture and the Intermountain Healthcare Model, logical and relevant.

Lee