Data visualization for truth maintenance in clinical decision support systems.

Background And Objectives: The goal is to inform proactive initiatives to expand the knowledge base of clinical decision support systems.

Design And Setting: We describe an initiative in which research informationists and health services researchers employ visualization tools to map logic models for clinical decision support within an electronic health record.

Materials And Methods: We mapped relationships using software for social network analysis: NodeXL and CMAP.

Giving patients granular control of personal health information: using an ethics 'Points to Consider' to inform informatics system designers.

Objective: There are benefits and risks of giving patients more granular control of their personal health information in electronic health record (EHR) systems. When designing EHR systems and policies, informaticists and system developers must balance these benefits and risks. Ethical considerations should be an explicit part of this balancing.

Promotion and tenure for community-engaged research: an examination of promotion and tenure support for community-engaged research at three universities collaborating through a Clinical and Translational Science Award.

Introduction: Community-engaged health research, an approach to research which includes the participation of communities, promotes the translation of research to address and improve social determinants of health. As a way to encourage community-engaged research, the National Institutes of Health required applicants to the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) to include a community engagement component. Although grant-funding may support an increase in community-engaged research, faculties also respond to the rewards and demands of university promotion and tenure standards.

When Informationists Get Involved: the CHICA-GIS Project.

Child Health Improvement through Computer Automation (CHICA) is a computer decision support system (CDSS) that interfaces with existing electronic medical record systems (EMRS) and delivers "just-in-time" patient-relevant guidelines to physicians during the clinical encounter and accurately captures structured data from all who interact with the system. "Delivering Geospatial Intelligence to Health Care Professionals (CHICA-GIS)" (1R01LM010923-01) expands the medical application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) by integrating a geographic information system with CHICA. To provide knowledge management support for CHICA-GIS, three informationists at the Indiana University School of Medicine were awarded a supplement from the National Library Medicine.

Perspective: is it time for advocacy training in medical education?

As the modern medical system becomes increasingly complex, a debate has arisen over the place of advocacy efforts within the medical profession. The authors argue that advocacy can help physicians fulfill their social contract. For physicians to become competent in patient-centered, clinical, administrative, or legislative advocacy, they require professional training.