STAT6001: Public Health Informatics

ASSESSMENT:1

Report- Summarizing Public Health Informatics

STAT6001: – Public Health Informatics

Introduction

The public health informatics refers to the application of informatics in the area of public health involving surveillance, prevention and promotion of health. This assignment us dealing with public informatics, it is analyzing the role of ICT in the management of public health, healthcare access and delivering of services. This assignment is dealing with the uses of ICT including mHealth, eHealth and the different strategies of the social media for health. The assignment will describe the reviews from different twitter accounts from week 1 to week 5 and it is also dealing with the barriers of telemedicine in Australia because of which the healthcare services are affected.

Discussion

The whole health industry is very much dependent on the social media, starting from the clinical healthcare programs to the public health campaigns in order to support, promote and spread the information and data for improving both the personal and the community healthcare services. The social media had provided he human beings the to share the different preventive measures and help human to create support to track the personal health and support in the creation of the patient to patient after the diagnoses is over (Attai et al., 2017). The social media help the patients to learn a lot of things regarding the different healthcare policies and different healthcare programs. There are many social media which allow the people to get accustomed with the different public health programs but among them ‘twitter’ allows people with different public health related accounts which helps people to become more conscious about health (Lee et al., 2015)

Twitter Review

Twitter is an online network of social media which offers a new way to track and maintain the management of the public health risks. The twitter helps the users to make new friends and keep the friendship with each other and with the family members and with the co-workers. This is possible by sending short messages through computers or mobile phones (Logghe et al., 2016). The twitter account also helps to detect the location of the user and helps in tracking the major details (Thompson et al., 2015). Apart from providing the information regarding the health-related programs the twitter also helps in providing information about events like earthquakes and typhoons, etc. So many accounts are there which provide information about public related programs but among them only a few accounts are there whose news feed provide us with several helpful information regarding the different public health programs (Pemmaraju et al, 2017). Some of the useful accounts are @telemedicine, @equitylist and @TheMarmotReview. @TheMarmotReview is one of the accounts which collect recent information about the recent public health services. According to one of the posts within five weeks, a program has been described which makes information about the intellectual disability. People suffering from these difficulties suffer from issues like malfunction in communication which serves as the barrier in accessing and participating in healthcare. The project was set by 3DN UNSW. The project aimed in communicating with the family members of the patient order to find their health journey and to teach them the type of the resources required to develop the knowledge about the intellectual disability. @telemedicine is one of the important journals which keeps different news and the updated information about all new research works and published research papers. According to one of the posts of the telemedicine journal had posted about publishing of a new research paper about the effect of telephones. The name of the article is “Effect of telephones- Delivered interventions on glycemic control in type II diabetes treated with Glargine insulin. The paper deals with the fact that telephonic delivered intervention provide help and support in the self-management of diabetes so that a person can control the diabetes and improve the diabetes control. eStar program is one of the telephone support platforms for the people suffering from type II diabetes on Glargine insulin treatment. People were found to recover after they received the treatment. @equitylist is another important twitter account which keeps valuable information about the public health awareness programs. One of the posts in the last 5 weeks, one post was found about the urinary tract infection. The post was that ‘urinary tract infections affect millions. This infection has become one of the major health issues of most of the people of the world not people are not aware about the disease. For those people who spend most of the time on social media, this feed will obviously help in knowing much more about the disease. The article is dealing with the fact that urinary tract infection has become resistant to most of the medicines that were used previously in order to cure the patient. Those medicines no longer act as the ailment of the disease. The article made people know about the medicines which no longer can cure the disease and helped people know about the medicines which are now baked to cure urinary tract infections. Another post of @equilist in the last 5 weeks has dealt with the primary healthcare model. Primary healthcare model is one of the approaches to provide primary care to the patients. The more the investment on the primary care the less is the healthcare costs and the condition of the primary health also improves. The model has articulated different definition of the primary health through a defined structure involving the detailed structure on the overall cost on spending on services. Another post was found on this account within the last five weeks about the geological factors and its relationship with the public health. The article is dealing with the fact that mental health of human beings is affected by the manmade and natural disaster. Those people who suffer from the disasters have chances to acquire several infectious diseases and as a result the mental health of the patients are also affected. People must be aware about maintaining equity between the mental and physical illness. From all the feeds it can be said that twitter no doubt acts as the fey effective social media in making people update about all the different heath benefit activities and health related programs. Nowadays people are not much aware about public awareness programs and health related activities. They are even not much aware about the recent research activities and also about the new inventions going on daily (Dueñas et al., 2016). So many researches are going on, but the common people are unaware about those inventions. If people follow all these accounts from twitter, then they will be updated about the public related programs (Rayner et al., 2016). Twitter is thus helping a lot on the management and the surveillance of the different healthcare related programs. From all the above-mentioned feeds of twitter accounts it can be said that as a social media tool twitter had helped people to become aware about the public healthcare programs and in future also it will do the same.

Telemedicine

The term telemedicine refers to the remote delivery of the different healthcare services like certain assessments health or certain urgent consultations from the doctors over the infrastructure if telecommunication. It helps the providers of the healthcare to do the evaluation, diagnose and the treatment of the patients by taking the help from technology like smart phones or video callings (Ghani, Jaber & Suryana, 2015). There are so many advantages of using telecommunication like convenience where patients do not have look for an appointment, the patient do not give to travel and visit the doctor. Another advantage of the telecommunication is the improved access. The patient in the rural areas can get the opportunities of special services like access of the mental health treatment and post-surgery follow up. Apart from having such advantages, the disadvantages of the telecommunication are matter of great concern (Poulsen et al., 2015). The disadvantages or the barriers of the telecommunication hamper a lot in delivering the care process through telecommunication. Cyber-security is one of the important barriers as the data which are transmitted by the telecommunication are susceptible to the hackers. The criminals and terrorists often keep the healthcare organizations as their targets. The second barrier is that the doctors sometimes are not able to prescribe medicines to the patients. Another barrier is that the services providers are often not aware about the ways to use the equipment of telemedicine. Licensing issue is also another as not all the states of a country are not accessible with the telemedicine approaches. Apart from all these one of the major barriers of the telecommunication is the availability of the internet connections. Many of the telecommunication approaches are not available in the remote areas because of the lack of proper facilities of internet. Many of the patients suffer and even in acute conditions, it may even lead to the death of the person. The issues of can be classified into the ICT issues and the management issues (Scott et al., 2018). Among the ICT issues the matter which needs to be considered are them data consideration and the interoperability. Data consideration involves understanding each other in the systems. The issues lie in the representation and structure of the data (Bagot et al., 2016). The information about how the hoe the data are defined, structured and represented is known as the metadata. The metadata endorsed for use in Australia are known as data standards. These standards are made for the purpose of improving the relevancy, quality, consistency and availability of information about health and welfare of the people of Australia. If the data standards are not collected properly, then it will hamper the representation of the information also. The metadata online registry is the repository of Australia in the sectors of health, housing assistance, community services, early childhood and homelessness. So, the representation of the metadata must be done correctly otherwise it will hamper the process of telemedicine (Grossman & Goldstone, 2015).

Interoperability is ability to receive and send data among the network which are continuously interconnected with each other provide that the quality standards are maintained both by the provider of the information and the receiver of the information (Cardoso et al, 2018). The advantages of the interoperability include that it can select the best equipment available from different manufacturers which are based on the best performances and prices. So, if any problem arises regarding the interoperability the telemedicine policies will also get hampered (Detro et al., 2016)

The management issue lies in the management of the organization who are involved in providing the information and those who receive the healthcare through the telecommunication systems. Sometimes it may happen that the patients are not getting the specific treatment desired by the patient. The healthcare provider also sometimes is not able to understand about the exact treatments that the patients are wanting (Wilson & Maeder, 2015). In these types of instances, the issue lies on the management of the organization or the management of the patient. May be the care providers or the patients do not know the ways how to operate the telecommunication devices. Unable to use the devices lead them into great troubles. Another issue is the improper internet connection in the rural areas. Suppose at the time when the doctor is in a video call with the patient, the improper internet connection will hamper the video call.

Presently many of the rural areas have proper internet connections however in the few weeks ago, the internet facilities were not available much. Still much improvements are needed in many of the rural areas so that in future the people of the rural area do not have to suffer much and will get required medical assistance at appropriate times (Fang et al., 2018).

Conclusion

The assignment is about public health informatics, the role the social media and telemedicine plays in the public health informatics. Among all the social media, the twitter has been found to be the most effective one as most of the people worldwide are familiar with his media. The health promotion accounts of the twitter makes people aware about the present health promotion activities and about the recent research activities. The telemedicine activity helps the people residing in the rural areas to get healthcare and medicinal services at urgent conditions. However, the telemedicine activity faces many barriers, it is trying to cope up with the barriers and hope in future it will be able to overcome all the barriers.

Reference

Attai, D. J., Anderson, P. F., Fisch, M. J., Graham, D. L., Katz, M. S., Kesselheim, J., … & Utengen, A. (2017, October). Risks and benefits of Twitter use by hematologists/oncologists in the era of digital medicine. In Seminars in hematology (Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 198-204). WB Saunders.

Bagot, K. L., Bladin, C. F., Vu, M., Kim, J., Hand, P. J., Campbell, B., … & Cadilhac, D. A. (2016). Exploring the benefits of a stroke telemedicine programme: an organisational and societal perspective. Journal of telemedicine and telecare, 22(8), 489-494.

Cardoso, L., Marins, F., Quintas, C., Portela, F., Santos, M., Abelha, A., & Machado, J. (2018). Interoperability in healthcare. In Health Care Delivery and Clinical Science: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 689-714). IGI Global.

Detro, S. P., Morozov, D., Lezoche, M., Panetto, H., Santos, E. P., & Zdravkovic, M. (2016, February). Enhancing semantic interoperability in healthcare using semantic process mining. In 6th International Conference on Information Society and Techology, ICIST 2016 (Vol. 1, pp. 80-85).

Dueñas, M., Ojeda, B., Salazar, A., Mico, J. A., & Failde, I. (2016). A review of chronic pain impact on patients, their social environment and the health care system. Journal of pain research, 9, 457.

Fang, J. L., Asiedu, G. B., Harris, A. M., Carroll, K., & Colby, C. E. (2018). A mixed-methods study on the barriers and facilitators of telemedicine for newborn resuscitation. Telemedicine and e-Health, 24(10), 811-817.

Ghani, M. K. A., Jaber, M. M., & Suryana, N. (2015). Barriers faces telemedicine implementation in the developing countries: toward building Iraqi telemedicine framework. ARPN J. Eng. Appl. Sci, 10(4), 1562-1567.

Grossman, D., & Goldstone, P. (2015). Mifepristone by prescription: a dream in the United States but reality in Australia. Contraception, 92(3), 186-189.

Lee, J. T., Hamid, F., Pati, S., Atun, R., & Millett, C. (2015). Impact of noncommunicable disease multimorbidity on healthcare utilisation and out-of-pocket expenditures in middle-income countries: cross sectional analysis. PLoS One, 10(7), e0127199.

Logghe, H. J., Boeck, M. A., & Atallah, S. B. (2016). Decoding Twitter: understanding the history, instruments, and techniques for success. Annals of surgery, 264(6), 904-908.

Pemmaraju, N., Mesa, R. A., Majhail, N. S., & Thompson, M. A. (2017, October). The use and impact of Twitter at medical conferences: best practices and Twitter etiquette. In Seminars in hematology (Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 184-188). WB Saunders.

Poulsen, K. A., Millen, C. M., Lakshman, U. I., Buttner, P. G., & Roberts, L. J. (2015). Satisfaction with rural rheumatology telemedicine service. International journal of rheumatic diseases, 18(3), 304-314.

Rayner, L., Hotopf, M., Petkova, H., Matcham, F., Simpson, A., & McCracken, L. M. (2016). Depression in patients with chronic pain attending a specialised pain treatment centre: prevalence and impact on health care costs. Pain, 157(7), 1472.

Scott Kruse, C., Karem, P., Shifflett, K., Vegi, L., Ravi, K., & Brooks, M. (2018). Evaluating barriers to adopting telemedicine worldwide: A systematic review. Journal of telemedicine and telecare, 24(1), 4-12.

Thompson, M. A., Majhail, N. S., Wood, W. A., Perales, M. A., & Chaboissier, M. (2015). Social media and the practicing hematologist: Twitter 101 for the busy healthcare provider. Current hematologic malignancy reports, 10(4), 405-412.

Wilson, L. S., & Maeder, A. J. (2015). Recent directions in telemedicine: review of trends in research and practice. Healthcare informatics research, 21(4), 213-222.

ASSESSMENT:
1

Report
–

Summarizing Public Health Informatics

STAT6001:
–

Public Health Informatics

ASSESSMENT:1
Report- Summarizing Public Health Informatics

STAT6001: – Public Health Informatics

ASSESSMENT BRIEF
Subject Code and Title	STAT6001: Public Health Informatics
Assessment	Assessment 1: Report – Summarising Public Health Informatics (including evaluation)
Individual /Group	Individual
Length	2,500 words
Learning Outcomes	This assessment addresses the following learning outcomes: · Synthesise knowledge of public health informatics · Analyse the role of ICT in public health management and healthcare access and service delivery · Examine global and national legislation and strategies for ICT applications in health · Apply critical reasoning skills to assess and report onthe effectiveness of an ICT project · Evaluate the innovative use of ICT, including mHealth, eHealth and social media strategies for health promotion, disease outbreak and risk communication, emergencies and disaster response · Evaluate the ways that systems, infrastructure and resources can constrain the effective applications of ICT
Submission	Due Sunday following the end of Module 3 at 11:55pm AEST/AEDT*
Weighting	40%
Total Marks	100 marks

*Please Note: This time is Sydney time (AEST or AEDT). Please convert to your own time zone (eg. Adelaide = 11:25pm).

STAT6001_Assessment Brief 1

Page
2
of 7

Instructions:

In this assessment, you will follow two parts:
1. Twitter Review:

Follow three public health-related Twitter accounts and summarise what you have learned from following these feeds for 5 weeks (from Week 1 to week 5 of the trimester). Critique on how Twitter as a social media tool, can be utilised for informed public health informatics field. Note that you will need to create a Twitter account. You may pick up accounts from the following list (1500 words)
· @Croakeyblog
· @ehealthpaho
· @equitylist
· @TheMarmotReview
· @RuralMental_Hth
· @DigitalHealth
· @eHealthAus
· @JMedInternetRes
· @Healthypolicies
· @AUMentalHealth
· @telemedicine_Jn
2. Telemedicine in Australia (1000 words)

Summarise the barriers to the uptake of telemedicine in Australia based on articles provided in the learning resources and wider literature (last 5 years). Classify them into ICT issues and management issues and evaluate current methods.
In your opinion, what are the key barriers and how can these be addressed? Provide suggestions and practical recommendations based on evidence.

Marking Rubric:

Assessment Attributes

0-34 (Fail 2 – F2)

Unacceptable

35-49 (Fail 1 – F1)

Poor

50-64

(Pass -P)

Functional

65-74

(Credit – CR)

Proficient

75-84

(Distinction – DN)

Advanced

85-100

(High Distinction – HD)

Exceptional

Grade Description (

Grading

Evidence of unsatisfactory

Evidence of satisfactory

Evidence of a good level

Evidence of a high

Evidence of an

Scheme

)

achievement of one or more

achievement of subject

of understanding,

level of

exceptional level of

of the learning objectives of

learning objectives, the

knowledge and skill

achievement of the

achievement of

the subject, insufficient

development of

development in relation

learning objectives

learning objectives

understanding of the subject

relevant skills to a

to the content of the

of the subject

across the entire

content and/or unsatisfactory

competent level, and

subject or work of a

demonstrated in

content of the course

level of skill development.

adequate

superior quality on the

such areas as

demonstrated in such

interpretation and

majority of the learning

interpretation and

areas as

critical analysis skills.

objectives of the subject.

critical analysis,

interpretation and

Demonstration of a high

logical argument,

critical analysis,

level of interpretation

use of methodology

logical argument,

and critical analysis

and communication

creativity, originality,

skills.

skills.

use of methodology

and communication

skills.

Knowledge and understanding

Reports on what was learnt from following the Twitter accounts Demonstrates learning on public health informatics
Demonstrates an understanding of Telemedicine as it is applied in Australian context
(20%)

Limited understanding of required concepts and knowledge
Key components of the assignment are not addressed.

Knowledge/understand ing of the field or discipline.
Resembles a recall or summary of key ideas.

Thorough knowledge/
understandi ng of the field or discipline/s. Supports personal opinion and information substantiated by evidence from the research/course
materials.

Highly developed understanding of the field or discipline

A sophisticated understanding of the field or discipline/s.
Systematically and critically discriminates between assertion of personal opinion and information

substantiated by

robust evidence from

STAT6001_Assessment Brief 1
Page 4 of 7

Often confuses assertion of personal opinion with information substantiated by evidence from the research/course materials.

Demonstrates a capacity to explain and apply relevant concepts.

Well demonstrated capacity to explain and apply relevant concepts.

the research/course materials and extended reading.

Mastery of concepts and application to new situations/further learning.

Critical reasoning, presentation and defence of an argument and/or position

Specific position (perspective or argument) fails to take into
account the complexities of

Specific position (perspective or
argument) begins to

Specific position (perspective or
argument) takes into

Specific position (perspective or
argument) is

Specific position (perspective or
argument) is

Critiques the accounts in terms of adding value in the domain of public health informatics
(30%)

the issue(s) or scope of the assignment.

take into account the issue(s) or scope of the assignment.

account the complexities of the issue(s) or scope of the assignment.
Others’ points of view

expertly presented and accurately takes into account
the complexities of

presented expertly, authoritatively and imaginatively,
accurately taking into

Makes assertions that are not justified.

Justifies any conclusions reached with arguments not merely assertion.

are acknowledged.

Justifies any conclusions reached with well- formed arguments not

the issue(s) and
scope of the assignment.
Justifies any
conclusions reached with well-

account the
complexities of the issue(s) and scope of the assignment.
Limits of position are acknowledged.

merely assertion.

developed

Justifies any

arguments.

conclusions reached

with sophisticated

arguments.

STAT6001_Assessment Brief 1
Page
7
of 7

Analysis and application with synthesis of new knowledge

Recommends strategies for addressing the challenges identified from wider research

(30%)

Limited synthesis and analysis.

Limited application/recommendations based upon analysis.

Demonstrated analysis and synthesis of new knowledge with application.

Shows the ability to interpret relevant information and literature.

Well-developed analysis and synthesis with application of recommendations linked to analysis/synthesis.

Thoroughly developed and creative analysis and synthesis and justified recommendations linked to analysis/synthesis.

Highly sophisticated and creative analysis, synthesis of new with existing knowledge.
Recommendations are clearly justified based on the analysis/synthesis.
Applying knowledge to new situations/other cases.

Use of academic and discipline conventions and sources of evidence

Use of academic conventions including appropriate resources and referencing (20%)

*General assessment criteria shown below

Poorly written with errors in spelling, grammar.

Demonstrates inconsistent use of good quality, credible and relevant research sources to support and develop ideas.

Is written according to academic genre (e.g. with introduction, conclusion or summary) and has accurate spelling, grammar, sentence and paragraph construction.

Is well-written and adheres to the academic genre (e.g. with introduction, conclusion or summary).

Demonstrates consistent use of high quality, credible and relevant research sources to

Is very well-written and adheres to the academic genre.

Consistently demonstrates expert use of good quality, credible and relevant research sources to

Expertly written and adheres to the academic genre.

Demonstrates expert use of high-quality, credible and relevant research sources to support and develop arguments and

There are mistakes in using the APA style.

Demonstrates consistent use of credible and relevant research sources to support and develop ideas, but these are not always explicit or well developed.
There are no mistakes in using the APA style.

support and develop ideas.

There are no mistakes in using the APA style.

support and develop appropriate arguments and statements. Shows evidence of reading beyond the key reading
There are no mistakes in using the APA style.

position statements. Shows extensive evidence of reading beyond the key reading

There are no mistakes in using the APA Style.

*General Assessment Criteria:

· Provides a lucid introduction
· Shows a sophisticated understanding of the key issues
· Shows the ability to interpret relevant information and literature
· Demonstrates a capacity to explain and apply relevant concepts
· Shows evidence of reading beyond the key reading
· Justifies any conclusions reached with well-formed arguments not merely assertion
· Provides a conclusion or summary
· Use of academic writing and presentation and grammar:
· Complies with normal academic standards of legibility, referencing and bibliographical details (including reference list).
· Is written clearly with accurate spelling, grammar and sentence and paragraph construction
· Appropriate citation and referencing used (using APA style)