"The EMR and You"

Recently, I visited with my general practitioner (the Doctor). The needed updating and renewal of my prescription was at hand. While we chatted during my examination I asked the Doctor a few questions concerning my past prognosis (history). She didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about. I said, "Doc you've been treating me for more than eight years and treated for a major illness." "What do you think or how do you feel about the way the treatment has turned out? The look of someone who was in the twilight zone came upon her face, the look of someone who has traded places with my doctor. I described to her the diagnosis and prognosis of the total experience up to now. Her demeanor made an abrupt change to OK, now I remember mode.

The doctor then started to explain the how and why of their patient records keeping system. The patient records were kept on an outdated wall roll out filing system in the administration portion of this very large and prominent city hospital clinic. I asked, "Doc, why is it that you don't have my records at hand for review as opposed to making a whole new file on me?" She then explained if a patient has not come into the office for more than two years, the hard copy files go to a central repository for storage. And soon after the records arrive to the repository, before long, they are destroyed. I then asked the doctor what would happen if a medical professional needed to access a patient's medical history to assist in the diagnosis and comparison of a new illness? The only answer that she could give me was "the hospital could not afford to store old patient files." I asked, isn't that a dangerous practice? She replied, yes.

Albeit, my doctor agreed with the need for an Electronic Medical Records keeping system for all hospitals, especially one as large as this.

I was appalled at the lack of technology that major hospitals and medical facilities in many cities and counties do not incorporate within their day-to-day responsibilities. Not to mention my anger of the danger factor in not having access to patient records, regardless of how long it's been between doctor visits. An EMR System will aid in the saving of life, the treatment and prevention of illnesses throughout this planet, its' people, animals, and life forms.

In my first report, "IT and BI", I mentioned the steps beginning technology students should take in order to ascend to the highest level of career achievements in the world of computers.

The first step is to understand the workings of computers and the mind set that needs to coincide with the brainwashing (training) it takes to adapt to its languages and communication networks. I do not consider myself to be an expert in the profession.

However, I have arrived at a comfortable level within the IT and BI world to which I am happy to play a part. Like many people (especially older learners) it had to begin somewhere. That somewhere was the desire to become computer savvy. It's grown from there...and continues to grow. I continue to eat, sleep, and breathe IT and BI.

Our country, as well as the rest of the world, is in need of the EMR System. The system needs operators for ETL and other operational functions. This system will be implemented whether hospital administrators like it or not...whether they can afford it or not. And the people to maintain and operate the functions of said system is inevitable. As an avid Data Miner and RDBMS Practitioner, I am constantly studying the trends, reports, articles, and the technology of EMR-Data Base Systems as well as Networks and Communications Hardware and Software. You do not have to be a scholar and/or technological genius to learn the stuff.

All you need is the desire and willingness to believe that you can function within the world of computers. I've included some data with regard to the beginner in mind within this report. Should you be one of those individuals who cannot afford to get into a classroom/training setting, I recommend that you go to a book store or library and gain all of the pertinent (and not so pertinent) material that you can get your hands on, read, study, and practice (find someone that will allow you to utilize their PC or Mac, if you don't have one) using the software and its hardware to learn the languages and applications.

Here are some beginning data that will help you to understand PCs and Networks:

Management Information Systems (MIS)

The difference between hardware and Software:
Hardware are/is the things that you can see, touch, and feel, i.e., a central processor, a printer, a monitor, a variety of electronic and machine parts; physical components; Software is the languages and operating systems; the controlling and support of a computer system; instructions, programs, disks; usable and replaceable portions of the total system.

Some characteristics of the processing functions are: data is changed or transformed into information for comparison, to sort, to calculate, etc.

The difference between data and information is: data is defined as raw material entered into the processing system, i.e., the keyboard; information is processed data that is processed into meaningful information.

The definition of S.O.P. (Standard Operating Process) is protocol, the rules or conventions governing the format and transmission of messages exchanged between computer and terminal devices.

Key categories of I.S.T. (Information Systems Technical) are: hardware, software, storage, and telecommunications.

What is T.P.S? (Transportation Process Systems) - the systems that controls the scheduling, routing, inventory, materials, and transportation information.

M.I.S. (Management Information Systems) are oriented almost exclusively towards internal organizational events; a system that aides management in making, carrying out, and controlling decisions, planning and management; aides management in the performance of its job; getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

The definition of D.S.S. (Decision Support System) characteristics are:
Aides in making decisions under conditions of uncertainty; analyzes situations, charts and other visual exhibits can be transmitted and displayed when necessary to clarify a point; access to files, makes and accurate forecast, prepares short term profit plans and long term / range projections, provides preplanning information in budget preparations, calculates variances, triggers revised forecasts, acts as early warning system, accomplishes all the proceeding with great speed and accuracy.

The definition of E.S.S. (Executive Support Systems) is: the executive support system is geared for an individual executive or a group of executives involving a separate personal data file, stripped or created from a main file geared to the needs of the individual executive.

Knowledge and Information based economy characteristics are (high tech - low hopes):
Shifting job market polarized wages and income, service and high tech jobs may be causing poverty instead of curing it, a shift from physical work to head work, 75% of jobs were in manufacturing, but lost to the service industry, and the computer revolution, the information revolution, the electronic revolution, the second industry revolution.

An information system can be defined as a system the aides in making and carrying out controlling devices based on the physical facilities that are available; A computer, a calculator, an adding machine, a book, etc.

The group responsible for monitoring affirms daily activities is called the International Data Corporation.

Characteristics of the Age of Information:
The first year when PC's were available commercially, ¾ of Americans jobs were in manufacturing. Expectations for the future were to live better than people of the past. Circa 1950. Interest rates were averaging 2%.

High Tech - Low Hopes:
Knowledge based on information gathered on the economy shift.

Pascal Lebowitz developed the first adding machine.

Processing characteristics:
To perform and manipulate operations on data.

Voice recognition would be an example of an input device - accepting data then analyzing the sound input.

What does DOS stand for and why do we need it?
DOS - Disk Operating System, a program that contains the controlling signals for the computer. A DOS System supervises and operates the subsequent programs loaded in the computer. It is the main central program used by the computer.

The difference between data and information: data is raw material entered into a computer system; information is processed data; information with understandable meaning.

The characteristics of the processing functions is raw data is transformed into logical information through a process of analytical and manipulated functions.

The 5 functions of a computer are:
The ability to accept data is the input device where data is issued through an analytical and manipulative function as well as automatically executing programs of instructions in order to perform mathematical logistics in a series of functions known as processing.

Output is a manipulative operation on data and reporting the results of its findings to the computer operator aiding to his/her performance of a job and/or personal information and/or entertainment. The five function are input, storage, process, execute, and output.

General Systems

An environment consisting of many personal computers, workstations, and servers, inter-connected by high-speed networks, and dispersed over small or large geographical areas.

The attractions if such a system are widely recognized; each user has autonomy and control over the fate of his/her own resources. Each user benefits from file sharing information and data. Connectivity with servers allows sharing of expensive resources (disk forms of desktop services).

Visual Basic is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that allows for the creation of applications designed to run as the windows operating environment. These applications are GUI (Graphic User Interface) based programs that use the event driven program model (Multiple Components Writing to Control/Run Programming - Procedural Programming).

Operating Systems

The collection of computer programs that control the interaction of the user and the computer hardware is called the operating system (OS). The operating system of a computer is often compared to the conductor of and orchestra, for it is the software that is responsible for directing all computer operations and managing all computer resources.

Usually, part of the operating system is stored permanently in a read-only (ROM) chip so that it is available as soon as the computer is turned on. A computer can look at the values in read-only memory but cannot write new values to the chip. The ROM-based partition of the OS contains the instructions necessary for loading into memory the rest of the operating system code, which typically resides on a disk.

Loading the operating system into memory is called booting the computer. Now push the on button.

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