What is the course about?

Medical Informatics has become an integral part of the medical curriculum at NUI Galway, based on the following premise:

“To support health care, life-long learning, education, research and management medical students should be able to at the time of graduation to utilise biomedical and psychosocial information for: formulating problems; arriving at solution strategies; collecting and critiquing and analysing information; taking appropriate action based on findings and communicating/documenting these processes and results. (AAMC 2001)

In order that you might achieve this goal we have set you the following learning objectives.  These objectives are derived from those set by the AAMC.  If you read them you will have an understanding of what this course is about and what you hope to achieve.

Basic competencies

Your first step is to ensure that you have basic computer literacy.  We will assume that you have these basic competencies already.  If you are concerned that you may lack some of these skills, contact Ben Kanaragatnam for some one to one or small group tuition.

Before you attempt this course you should be able to:

• Launch a computer application
• Save work to hard, floppy and network drives
• Print from a file using both a toolbar shortcut and a print menu
• Copy files from one drive to another
• Use standard word processing and spread sheet applications
• Use e-mail effectively, including sending attachments and graphics
• To access and navigate the world wide web using a web browser

Teaching methods

The medical informatics course uses 4 teaching methods, namely lectures, computer practicals, self paced learning using the WWW and study guides.  There are 72 lectures and 26 discreet practicals.  The practical sessions have been designed to consolidate the knowledge learned in the lectures.  All the lectures (complete with brief explanatory notes), appear in PowerPoint format on the Medical Informatics website.  The WWW lectures can be used for revision or to catch up on missed lectures.  Each WWW lecture is linked to a study guide.  The study guides are designed to guide your learning about the topic in question.  They include recommended reading, links to other resources and self test exercises.

We recommend 100% attendance at lectures and practicals.  {Failure to attend < 75% of all lectures and/or practicals will remove your automatic right to sit the Medical Informatics Spring Examination.}  The WWW lectures and study guides have been designed to complement rather than replace the lecture and practical course.  Thus a self-paced approach using our WWW resources will not provide an adequate explanation of the fundamental concepts. 

The course is divided into two related sections.  The first is about medical knowledge and information.  “How do we as doctors, know what we know?”  It examines how medical information is generated, stored and managed.  The second section examines the concepts of certainty and precision.  It includes epidemiology and statistics. It is essentially about the examination of medical “truth”.

Filter, evaluate, and reconcile information, demonstrating the following:

1. Knowledge of the factors that influence the accuracy and validity of information in general.
2. The ability to discriminate between types of information sources in terms of their format, authority, relevance and availability.
3. The ability to weigh conflicting information from several sources and reconcile the differences.
4. The ability to critically review of published research reports.
5. Knowledge of copyright and intellectual property issues, especially with regard to electronically retrieved materials.

Exhibit good information habits.  These reflect attitudes that support the effective use of information technology, and include:

1. Using multiple information sources for problem-solving.
2. Maintaining a healthy scepticism about the quality and validity of all information.
3. Making decisions based on evidence, when such is available, rather than opinion.
4. An awareness of the many ways in which information may become lost or corrupted and the need to take appropriate preventative action.
5. The protection and confidentiality of private information obtained from patients, colleagues and others

Informatics in the clinical setting

It is important that students learn how to acquire information about patients, make clinical decisions based on the available information and record the information appropriately. In order that a medical student is fully prepared for her at clinical role following qualification she should be able to do the following:

1. Interpret clinical data such as laboratory and X-ray reports
2. Understand the limitations of all forms of investigation.
3. Quantify and communicate the degree of certainty associated with specific items of scientific and clinical information.
4. The identify and locate, when possible, the crucial pieces of missing clinical information, and determine when it is appropriate to act on incomplete information.
5. The students should have a sound understanding of how electronic records work and are applied in practice.
6. The students should have a good understanding of how doctors analyse patient data and reach medical decisions.  Algorithms, deduction, pattern recognition etc.
7. Integrate verbal and statistical sources of medical knowledge with the facts of a specific clinical case.
8. Demonstrate understanding of the place for a decision support tools into a little practice.
9. Demonstrate an understanding of the relative contribution of    Make critical use of Decision Support, demonstrating  knowledge of the available sources for decisions ranging from textbooks to on-line databases.
10. Formulate a treatment plan expressing the relative certainties of the differential diagnosis.
11. Express the relative risks and benefits of outcomes and    treatment options.

Communication and Informatics

Doctors must learn how to communicate effectively.  Students should therefore be able to demonstrate the following:

1. The ability to use software to create visual materials that effectively support all presentations.
2. The ability to create a handout that includes simple graphics and tables for use in teaching or patient education.
3. The ability to collaborate across multiple sites using electronic mail, discussion lists, newsgroups, teleconferencing, and related communication technologies.

Medical Informatics – Statistics course

1. The students should demonstrate an understanding of basic numerical and statistical concepts
2. The students should demonstrate an understanding of the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics
3. The students should be able demonstrate proficiency in the basic statistical skills of informatics:
   1. Ability to appraise and synthesise data
   2. Ability to analyse data using statistical techniques
   3. Ability to use computers to report and present findings
4. The students should have a good understanding of observational and experimental study designs.
5. The students should demonstrate a basic understanding of how to conduct an evidence based literature search and how to synthesise findings into a report or review.

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