An old article I saved from my time in the PFF Fellows Program, when our topic of the year was "Second Life"

http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol5_issue2/Using_Second_Life_with_Learning-Disabled_Students_in_Higher_Education.pdf 

About The course HIM 381 (Public Health Informatics)

For me, HIM 381 was a great class. I learned a lot in this course, and recommend it to everyone who wants to know more about public health and health IT. The class covered a broad range of topics in public health informatics, consisting of policy issues and reforms in health, application of Informatics in public health, adoption of technologies in PHI, cyber-infrastructure in public health domain, privacy and security issues, education and training in PHI, global aspects of PHI, and more. Public health as the health of a 'population' (not just 'individuals'), is a key domain in health. In particular, when we note the importance of this aspect in addressing the new challenges the world is encountering, namely disasters, disease epidemics, global warming, bioterrorism and more, we understand why this field has become so important. One of the interesting aspects of this class was its innovative combination of various types of knowledge transferring methods. In addition to the regular course material, this class offered a number of effective tools like videos of the newest lectures or symposiums on related topics, group discussions, lectures, and more. In addition, students gave summaries of the related articles, weekly, and guest speakers (the expert researchers so knowledgeable in their fields) had presentations, as well. All these aspects caused this course to be especially effective.

In addition to the above points, one opportunity I found in this course was that for doing my final term assignment, I conducted a research and provided a paper about the  'rich-poor gap' in global health, and the role of public health training in bridging this gap ( with a special emphasis on exploitation of IT). To do this, I needed to  conduct a literature review that made me more familiar with many new and interesting issues relating to the field .The different aspects of this gap, the potential of public health function in the global health arena in addressing the evolving world challenges, the role of public health workforce training in developing countries on these global threats, the deficits existing in these countries relating to health, and the role of IT in this domain, are all the interesting topics that I learned about in this course. Thanks to Professor Horan for such a great course.

What I learned in the course HIM 378

In this course I learned about:

- The general concepts and definitions of E-health, Tele-health, and Tele-medicine, and also their distinctions;

-   The impacts of telemedicine on the three important issues in health care system: cost, quality, and access;

- Telecommunication technologies used in telemedicine, synchronous and asynchronous services, and the specific characteristics of IP teleconferencing;

-  Tele-radiology application: acquisition, displaying, and interpretation of images, RIS and PACS, DICOM and ACR standards;

- Tele-psychiatry application: behavioral Tele-health, patient care via videoconferencing, and existing challenges including the ethical, legal, and practical issues;   

- Telemedicine application in the military, VA initiatives;

- Issues relating to the electronic medical records;

- Security issues in telemedicine: cryptography, HIPAA standards, PHI, SSL, Firewalls, and effective filtering;

- Wireless technologies in telemedicine, their current use and functionality, and the future-trend predictions;

- Legal and ethical issues: Tele-health law and the relating acts, inter-state licensure and international approaches, reimbursement legislation, credentialing, and key ethical issues;

- Malpractice and risk management: malpractice, risk management, various considerations related to: practitioners, patients, staff training and documentation, organizational aspects, technological issues, and vendors.

We also became familiar with some practical and ongoing applications and initiatives, such as, MTV (Mobile Telemedicine Vehicle) initiative at Loma Linda University, and Tele-health initiative in UC Davis- Medical Center, to which we had a one-day visit. 

- In addition to the above subjects, we did a number of projects:

1- Developing a wiki, CGU Telemedpedia, containing key information about two subjects related to telemedicine: “Tele-health”, and: “Business case for Tele-medicine”;

2- Writing a business plan for Loma Linda University’s MTV;

3- Experimental set up for a teleconferencing practice for a “doctor-patient role-playing” and “Tele-education experience”;

4- Presenting an article, relating to Tele-health, at class;

5- Writing a research paper.

 The title of my paper was: “The role of text readability in improving health: An analytical investigation of the current methods of readability assessment of health- related information”.

                                                                 About IS 360

In the course IS 360, I learned about various aspects pertaining to research, including: different philosophies of science; different arguments about the nature of science; scientific body of knowledge and different kinds of concepts and statements that form this body; theory construction; real world research: fixed and flexible approaches; how to plan a research; how to select topics and ask research questions; how to make a claim and how to support it (claim, reason, evidence, warrant and acknowledgement); how to draft a research; how to plan and manage a dissertation project; and more.

We were required to read six books and a large number of papers. In each week, we should read a part of a book and made blog entries and comment about our understanding of what we had read. Furthermore, each week we had to read one or two papers and made some entries (containing our analytical viewpoints) in the discussion board. In addition to above mentioned assignments, we had to select two papers (one published in MISQ, the other in Journal of Applied Psychology) and gathered the relating information of all the papers citing these papers. For each week we entered the information of 10 citing papers, and at the end of semester we had to prepare two tables containing the information of all citing papers and also an analytical report about the scheme of citation.

At the end, I should say that although the course and its assignments were so heavy and time consuming, I think it helped us a lot to strengthen our knowledge and background needed for our future research.

                                                                 About IS 360

In the course IS 360, I learned about various aspects pertaining to research, including: different philosophies of science; different arguments about the nature of science; scientific body of knowledge and different kinds of concepts and statements that form this body; theory construction; real world research: fixed and flexible approaches; how to plan a research; how to select topics and ask research questions; how to make a claim and how to support it (claim, reason, evidence, warrant and acknowledgement); how to draft a research; how to plan and manage a dissertation project; and more.

We were required to read six books and a large number of papers. In each week, we should read a part of a book and made blog entries and comment about our understanding of what we had read. Furthermore, each week we had to read one or two papers and made some entries (containing our analytical viewpoints) in the discussion board. In addition to above mentioned assignments, we had to select two papers (one published in MISQ, the other in Journal of Applied Psychology) and gathered the relating information of all the papers citing these papers. For each week we entered the information of 10 citing papers, and at the end of semester we had to prepare two tables containing the information of all citing papers and also an analytical report about the scheme of citation.

At the end, I should say that although the course and its assignments were so heavy and time consuming, I think it helped us a lot to strengthen our knowledge and background needed for our future research.

My CGU e-portfolio, started February 11, 2010

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