CSci 110 Project on Electronic Health Records


		School of Engineering and Applied Science Department of Computer Science CSci 110 -- Technology and Society http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/csci110/summer09 Prof. Michael B. Feldman, course instructor mfeldman@gwu.edu

The Social Impact Analysis Project on Electronic Health Records -- 32% of grade, due in Stages

Every year, the term project in this course considers the social impact of a technological issue that is "hot" that year. In 2008, we studied election technologies; in 2007 the RealID Act; in 2006 the identity theft question, etc.

This year's "hot" issue is Electronic Health Records (EHR). Development in the U.S. of electronic health records and interchange networks has been ongoing for a number of years. A Federal task force has worked on this and released a number of reports, and started serious testing of some of the software using small groups of users. But this year, the new Obama Administration -- as part of the high priority it is giving to health care reform -- is putting heavy emphasis on EHR, as one important factor in providing more effective and efficient health care to Americans at a lower overall per capita cost. The American Recovery and Reinvestment ACT (ARRA, the so-called "stimulus package") devotes a significant amount of funding to accelerating the adoption of EHR throughout the society -- insurers, physicians, hospitals, pharmacies, and so on.

In this course we're interested not so much in the technical details of EHR systems, but rather in the overall impact on society of their adoption, including public perception. Your assignment is to research the topic as individuals, discuss it as a class, and design a survey to examine public attitudes about electronic health records. Each student will be assigned to one of several groups; each group will develop its own survey, and deploy it on the zoomerang.com survey website. You will collate and analyze the data, and each group will write a report of its findings. ONE final project paper per group is expected.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

All assignments for this course must be completed under the George Washington University Code for Academic Integrity. Read the section there on plagiarism!
You may use the Internet as a source of information, but others' work must be acknowledged! A quotation from the Internet is just like a quotation from a book, and be written in quotation marks, with a citation (in-line or footnote) to the URL of the site you used.
If you include material from other sources, including the Internet, in your own work, and fail to cite your sources properly, you are risking an Academic Integrity charge of plagiarism!

PROJECT STAGES:

Because of the compressed course schedule, this project must progress at the rate of one stage per week! Sorry about the fast pace, but this is the only way to get it done in 6 weeks overall!

Week 2 -- Research report (8%, due Sunday, 5/31): Each student will gain some background in the subject and write an individual report (approximately 1000-2000 of your own words) that will discuss the overall subject, including the general state of adoption of EHR systems, the recent Federal emphasis, and your personal assessment of the benefits and risks.

Wikipedia has a rather good -- and surprisingly up-to-date -- general survey of the issue. In addition to that article and the links in its bibliography, here are a few non-obvious sources you may find helpful:

Dept. of Health and Human Services site on Health Infomation Technology. Look specifically at the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) -- this project is mentioned in the ARRA, but was started a number of years ago, well before ARRA was even dreamed of.
White House website on the ARRA
PDF copy of the actual ARRA as the President signed it. Have you ever read an actual law? Try this! The EHR section begins on p. 119. How many pages are devoted to this one issue?
ARRA public comment form (tell the White House what you think of the ARRA!)
Government Health IT -- industry newsletter, interesting articles on EHR
Dr. David Blumenthal's article in New England Journal of Medicine -- he is President Obama's National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
New York City Primary Care Information Project
New York Times story on New York project
Massachusetts e-Health Collaborative
Times Story on Wal-Mart (!) Marketing EHR System
eClinicalWorks -- the company that's working with NYC and with Wal-Mart
NEW The Connect Open Source Project -- especially click on The Health Information Technology Public Utility Act of 2009, which is being circulated in Congress but hasn't been voted yet (as far as I know)

Week 3 -- Draft survey instruments (8%, due Sunday, 6/7): Each group will develop the questions for its survey instrument based upon the group members' research. Questions should generally focus on the respondents' demographics, and on respondents' attitudes toward Electronic Health Records. Before writing your questions, be sure to visit Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com) to get a sense of the types of questions that site supports.

Week 4 -- Survey Instruments due and deployed (due Sunday, 6/14): Each group will deploy its survey on Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com). One member of each group will create a FREE account (good for ten days) and enter the survey questions, etc. EMAIL INSTRUCTOR THE URL FOR YOUR SURVEY so I can help "advertise" your need for data. Be sure you also recruit your own family, friends, etc. to take your survey! :)

Week 5 -- Preliminary Report on Survey Results (8%, due Sunday, 6/21): Each group will collate, examine, and analyze its survey data and submit a report providing preliminary results.

Week 6 -- Final Social Impact Analysis Report (8%, due Saturday, 6/27): Each group will write a report based upon the data that contains an abstract, introduction to the subject, discussion of the research protocol, presentation of the findings, conclusions and bibliography.

[end]