Sunday, February 26, 2017

Data Presentation






Barbara Dixon Module 5
Systematic Design of Meaningful Presentations of Medical Test Data for Patients (2013-2016). Zikmund-Fisher, B. J., Fagerlin, A., Jagsi, R., Langa, K., Tarini, B. A., Solomon, J. (2017). Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine.

1.     Why was this article, blog, post, or multimedia chosen?
This article was used because it highlights the importance of how data is presented.  I have learned so much about data, and yet the importance of data presentation is a new concept to me.  It seems so obvious and yet creating meaningful data is a difficult task to achieve. The author notes the difficulty of knowing how to present data to the population of people that have poor literacy skills or poor understanding if numbers.  How do we present lab results to them? The data will quite literally be meaningless to them and they will not be able to use the data to make personal healthcare decisions that will improve their health. 
2.     What makes it interesting, appropriate, or reputable?
This information is very interesting to me because reveals an important area of informatics I had never considered. Research in this area could possibly help to bridge a gap in healthcare disparities.  For example, if information is delivered to the right person in the right way, that person can use the new information to improve their health.  On the contrary, if we continue to deliver health information to the public without any regard to how individuals would best understand that data, a lot of time will be wasted delivering meaningless data and people will not have the additional knowledge of how to improve their health.  
3.     Is it an opinion? Case study? Research study? Product review?
This paper is a proposal for research.
4.     What was the need, problem, issue or trend addressed in the article, blog, post, or multimedia?
The need is for more research on how to best present data to people with different needs and abilities for understanding that data. 
5.     What was the solution for which technology had an answer?
Technology can improve the way data is presented to people, therefore giving the data improved meaning.
6.     What implications might this have in healthcare delivery?
Improving how data is presented and improving its meaning will allow people to use the information more effectively, allowing them to improve their own health by making changes and better decisions.  This could bridge gaps in healthcare disparities that are caused by poor comprehension of the healthcare data.    
7.     What did you learn from it that might have application for your practice?
Reflecting on how I educate patients and talk to them about their healthcare data, I can see how I need to pay attention to my patient’s level of understanding of the data I give them.  Knowing the impact data presentation has on a patient’s healthcare outcome, I need to better evaluate their ability to understand, and utilize different methods of presenting data when I can see that it is necessary. 

References
Zikmund-Fisher, B. J., Fagerlin, A., Jagsi, R., Langa, K., Tarini, B. A., Solomon, J. (2017). Systematic design of meaningful presentations of medical test data for patients (2013-2016). Retrieved February 26, 2017 from: http://cbssm.med.umich.edu/what-we-do/research-projects/systematic-design-meaningful-presentations-medical-test-data-patients

2 comments:

  1. Very true. Technology can enhance the way data is presented. I remember using old DOS systems and nuances in data were frequently lost if one did not use a reporting system like Crystal Reports to make it clearer.

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  2. You hit the nail right on the head Professor. Implementation of an eMAR is a project that has been put off because of cost and poor communication strategies, and implemting a new workflow to and more technology is something that not many are comfortable with. Ultimately, poor communication results in poor teamwork. Teamwork and communication are both strongly intertwined. The change would need to start with upper management setting the example and keeping everyone informed. Unfortunately when projects are not meeting milestones on time, management will use a technique such as adding more people to the project to try to catch up. Schwalbe (2015) provides great examples of why this is not a useful strategy. If a project has two months of work for one employee to accomplish, putting a second employee on the project does not mean it can be completed in one month. She Compares it to the concept of nine pregnant women will not produce a baby in one month (Schwalbe, 2015). Organizations that communicate with their people know the importance keeping the energy and enthusiasm of their employees heading in the same direction towards accomplishing organizational goals. The business strategy and the communication strategy must be well planned and complement each other. Internal Communication needs a strong well-planned strategy so that employees can utilize the information and knowledge to produce creative and informed actions and decisions that will produce more value to the company (Quirke, 2008).

    References
    Quirke, B. (2008). Making the connections using internal communication to turn strategy into action (2nd Ed.).Burlington, Vt: Growler Publishing Company.

    Schwalbe, K. (2015). Project communications management. In Schwalbe, K. (Eds.), Information Technology project management (8th ed.)(pp. 389-424) Boston, MA.: Cengage Learning.

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