Assignment Prompt & Instructions
PLEASE FOLLOW ALL OF THE INSTRUCTIONS
**files (3)**
– ## IDNScenarios.pdf
– ## SelectionofHealthInformaticsScenarios.pdf
– ## TheFivePillarsofInformatics.pdf
**## IDNScenarios.pdf**
IDN Scenarios
Option 1: Bay Bridge Health Network. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises five hospitals and 20 physician
practices, five long-term care facilities, two urgent service medical malls, and an
insurance plan covering 3 million lives in the San Francisco area. Strategic
imperatives for this IDN include 10% operational cost reductions that are
sustainable across business units and market share expansion through
virtualization strategies to compete with independent and retail urgent care
competitors in the region.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Multihospital Electronic Health Record Implementation (documentation,
results, clinical provider order entry [CPOE]; and decision support systems
[DSS])
o Practice Management System Clinical Implementation
o Practice Management System Billing, Registration, and Scheduling
Implementation
o Materials Management System Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
o Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Software Implementation
Option 2: Star Health Alliance. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises 20 hospitals; 50 specialty clinics in
cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology; three women’s health centers; 200
physician practices; and an insurance plan covering 5 million lives across three
different states in the Midwest. Strategic imperatives for this IDN include 10%
operational cost reductions that are sustainable across business units and the
realization of a 20% improvement in physician practice-based clinical quality
metrics specific to wellness activities related to cancer prevention, diabetes risk
management, and women’s health.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Practice Management System Clinical Implementation
o Practice Management System Billing, Registration, and Scheduling
Implementation
o Telehealth Monitoring Application Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Electronic Visits) Implementation
o Multimedia Patient Education System Implementation
Option 3: Palm Health Care Partners. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises 10 hospitals, five specialty centers in
cardiology and endocrinology, 50 physician practices, 40 senior living communities
including five skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), a home health agency, and two
insurance plans covering 5 million lives in the Florida–Atlantic coastal area.
Strategic imperatives for this IDN include 15% operational cost reductions that are
sustainable across business units and improved population health initiatives
involving comorbid populations of health plan members, including persons with
congestive heart failure (CHF) and diabetes and related comorbidities.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Software Implementation
o Case Management or Population Health Software Implementation
o Claims Management Implementation
o Business Intelligence (Data Warehousing and Visualization) System
Implementation
o Home Health Electronic Record Implementation for Clinical and Claims
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
**## SelectionofHealthInformaticsScenarios.pdf**
In your review of The Five Pillars of Informatics reflect on the various types of informatics
solutions, such as clinical provider order entry (CPOE) implementations, patient portal
implementations, or upgrades of patient management systems addressed as individual
project initiatives in HIA601. Compare the program to your chosen IDN. As you examine
each of the projects with your program, analyze how to implement these projects in
tandem to best address the stated goals of the IDN. Consider the following: Are the
systems being implemented in such a way that the IDN can gain measurable and
sustainable cost reductions?
For this week’s assignment, you will select an IDN from the provided IDN scenarios. You
will take the role of the program management office director (PMOD). In this role, you will
create a program management plan that will encompass several projects. These projects
are listed in each IDN scenario as “informatics implementation projects.” You will choose
one informatics implementation project for which you will take on the role of project
manager.
You should note that each informatics implementation project reflects a significant
investment for the organization. It’s the job of the PMOD (you) to determine how each
project and the program overall creates tangible benefits for the organization while
controlling technology costs. Remember that while each project is a discrete informatics
solution being implemented in the organization, the challenge for students is to assess the
interrelationships and interdependencies between these projects as they form an
informatics program.
Ensure you download The Five Pillars of Informatics (ATTACHED) white paper to guide your
strategy for the IDN. To do this, consider the following questions:
• Which informatics pillars does your program most clearly reflect?
• Think about the composition of the IDN and the stated goals and objectives in the
scenario: How will the implementation of multiple informatics solutions, in tandem,
strategically enable that organization to meet these goals?
In your paper,
• Formulate an initial strategy to manage the informatics implementation projects as
a comprehensive program for the chosen IDN.
• Analyze the challenges that you will face as you develop your informatics program
strategy for the chosen IDN.
• Discuss the goals of the IDN and how they contribute to a competitive strategy for
the organization.
[https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1](https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1)
[https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1](https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1)
• Explain how at least two of the health informatics pillars relate to the goals and
competitive strategy of the IDN based on research in the field.
• Describe how each project in the informatics program individually contributes to
achieving the goals of the IDN.
• Outline at least five interrelationships or dependencies between the projects in your
informatics program.
• Compose an initial statement of the risk you may encounter with the informatics
program. Please outline at least one technical, financial, and operational risk
identified.
The Selection of Health Informatics Scenarios paper
• must be at least 7 double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references
pages) and formatted according to APA Style.
• Must include at least 7 peer-review scholar articles plus the course textbook
• must include a separate title page with the following:
o title of paper in bold font
▪ Space should appear between the title and the rest of the
information on the title page.
o student’s name
o name of institution (The University of Arizona Global Campus)
o course name and number
o instructor’s name
o due date
Course Textbook:
Longest, B. B., Jr. (2015). Health program management: From development through
evaluation. (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
[https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apa-style](https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apa-style)
[https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121](https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121)
[https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121](https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121)
**## TheFivePillarsofInformatics.pdf**
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 1
1
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Position Paper: Masters Education in Health Informatics and Analytics and Transformational
Informatics
Dr. Suzanne Paone
Dr. Karen Bakuzonis
University of Arizona Global Campus School of Health Sciences
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA)
August 2019
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 2
2
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Call for Transformation
Current structures, cultures, and platforms in health and health services in the U.S. will
benefit from a transformational change. Amidst demands for transparency and improved quality
on the part of new generations of consumers’ traditional health organizations still trend low in
quality and cost performance metrics compared to global health systems. While the National call
for automation through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s Meaningful Use program
achieved levels of base transactional data gathering and pockets of quality improvement in health
provider systems, automation alone has done little to precipitate change. Furthermore,
government incentive programs hardly provide sustainable economic models. Clearly health
cost and quality problems have proven not to be a matter of pure investments in systems and
automation. There is a need to improve basic consumer trust in quality outcomes as basic as
medication error avoidance (McMains V., 2016). Likewise, while health care costs in the U.S.
have leveled off in the last few years, the industry, on the whole, is still a noncompetitive enigma
to most accomplished business leaders in other sectors of the economy as well as policy makers
and governing bodies.
What U.S. health care experiences in 2019 is not unlike what other sectors of the U.S.
economy have experienced in the past two decades. New models of doing business where
outperforming competitors on quality metrics while significantly reducing costs is the norm in
sectors such as financial services, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality to name a few. In these
industries, we see relatively standardized data collected through basic transactional business
processes that are now being used to improve the customer experience, sell more relevant
products, flatten hierarchical organizational structures and spawn new disruptive organizations in
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 3
3
mature industries. Policy pundits debate financing and entitlement structures for U.S. health care
and important philosophical questions as to whether health care coverage is a right or a privilege.
While this is valuable discourse, creative citizens, within and external to, existing health systems
see the call for transformation in the U.S. health economy regardless of political disposition.
Informatics, HIT and Data Science
As early as 2011 the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) published a
broad framework for the discipline of informatics consisting of five domains comprised of
practice in the areas of bioinformatics and clinical research, consumer health informatics, clinical
informatics and informatics focused in public & population health practice (Discovering Health
Insights (n.d.). This position aligns the use of informatics capabilities such as information
systems, policies regarding information governance, process change and adoption of data driven
practice as transformative. Pillars evolve to support broad transformation in all aspects of health
care deliver and health related service.
This framework of five inter-related pillars of informatics practice sets the stage for what
we call Transformational Informatics practice (TI). Transformational Informatics practice is the
set of processes, technologies and leadership skills that allow disruption of current health
structures, systems, and processes and sets the stage for industry innovation. Likewise, the rapid
installation of transactional information platforms in the health industry facilitates the gathering
of data and allows stakeholders to be able to utilize data science principles such as data analytics
to drop powerful inferences from these data assess. As we discussed below, the pillars alone are
not enough. Optimal Transformational Informatics practice includes the strategic amalgamation
of the five pillars of health informatics along with transformative leadership education skills to
produce emotionally intelligent leaders in the field.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 4
4
Five Pillars of Transformational Informatics (TI)
In order for structures, processes and systems related to health, heath care and health
services to remain relevant in the U.S. in coming decades and serve a local and global citizenry,
there must a convergence of collaborative informatics practice housed in the Five Pillars of
Transformational Informatics. Simply said, evolving actors in sectors of the health economy
must innovate creative ways to transform processes, systems, and cultural structures. While
much innovation comes from creative inspiration, passion, and dedication, risks can be mitigated
and rewards expedited if leaders make data driven decisions. Actors may be financial policy
makers, CEOs of traditional hospital structures, surgeons evaluating persons for procedures,
genetic counseling consultants advising families or children of elderly parents striving to make
appropriate risk-benefit based decisions at a societal, organizational and/or individual level. To
date, many of these actors have made decisions based on emotion. In the Information Age, tools
and methods exist to empower these actors to evolve into leaders. Actors become leaders and
leaders facilitate positive change. Figure 1.0
Transformational Informatics Education (TIE)
Higher educational organizations and programs are societal structures that must undergo
a fundamental transformation to align with the expectations of a viable health economy.
Rigorous and data driven graduate level programs including both evidence-based content and
dynamic pedagogical methods are needed to prepare a new generation of transformational
leaders. These programs must include both the technical content elements of a rigorous program
grounded in all Five Informatics Pillars and also evidence in fields of management science and
leadership that address content in Change Management, Disruptive Innovation, Effective
communication and Transformational Leadership practice. As seen in Figure 1.0, in the case of
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 5
5
TIE as applied to Health Informatics the foundation of graduate study lies in programs that
addresses all Five Pillars of Informatics practice. Similarly, the layer of the program that
facilities learners’ transformation as leaders lies in the execution of skills that employers
perceive as valuable in year after year surveys across organizations’ leaders:(NACE)
Just as the Nation’s heath cost/quality imperative was not as simple as implementing
electronic record platforms and revised coding standards, we posit that effective Health
Informatics studies are not as simple as linking curricula that cover the Five Pillars of Health
Informatics. As illustrated in Figure 1.0 the delivery of these content areas and their rich
histories of research and evidence must align with content in areas traditionally though of by
many biomedical and HIT educators and practitioners as organizational development or soft
skills. Implementing a health informatics curriculum that dutifully covers biomedical
informatics, consumer health, population and public health and clinical information systems is
not enough.
Original research in all areas of educational program development and effectiveness with
regard to information driven leadership transformation is imperative. Like other societal
structures, educational organizations and their partners should be data driven in their pursuits to
transform existing educational structures in the develop of innovative graduate educational
models. Many societal entities have a vested interested in efficient higher education and
effective workforce development and should support rigorous research in this domain. In the
meantime, an early set of Guiding Attributes for effective Transformational Informatics
Education (TIE) in graduate studies specific to health and health services is evolving.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 6
6
These attributes specific to health informatics and analytics graduate education include but
are not limited to the following:
1. Multidisciplinary: Programs that facilitate multidisciplinary learning inclusive of
professionals from backgrounds in health care delivery (providers & administrators,
information technology, health and non-healthcare backgrounds and health information
management (HIM)
2. Experiential: Educational cultures that support discourse, critical thinking, case-based,
experiential learning
3. Transforming: Programs that aim to support the transformation of learners during the
graduate educational process along the spectrum of advanced Emotional Intelligence (EI)
4. Integrative: Programs that integrate both historical evidence and research in the fields
represented by the Five Pillars as well as teaching and supporting learning in the realities
of disruptive change seen in the Information Age culture
5. Nimble: Structures and methods that are flexible, scalable and are built to leverage
unforeseen advancements in both learning & consumer-based technologies
In summary, as illustrated in Figure 2.0 graduate education in transformative informatics
practice the challenge for learners involves programs and content that are innovative, change
oriented, culturally competent in their delivery and emphasize the importance of data driven
decision making. Educational programs that are delivered utilizing this strategy effectively
integrate technical content in the field, such as the pillars of informatics in the health field along
with critical leadership skills that are necessary in the development of stakeholders who can
facilitate sweeping change. It is beholden upon every constituency who has a vested interest in
education to step back and assess both current programs and developing programs and
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 7
7
educational models in this light as we continue to explore innovative ways to better serve
societies needs in the evolving Information Age.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 8
8
Appendix A
Figure 1.0
The Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Note: This figure illustrates how the five pillars of transformation impact organizational
transformation.
Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Change Management, Innovation, Effective
Communication, Transforming Leadership
T
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TransformationOrganizational Transformation
is achieved through Transforming
Leaders who enable change,
manage communication and
embrace innovation in their use
of strategic information assets.
• Translational Bioinformatics
enables innovation in biologic
and computing science .
• Clinical Research Informatics
informs discovery and
innovation.
• Clinical Informatics enables
change & improvements in
people & systems processes.
• Consumer Health
Informatics empowers
customers.
• Population & Public Health
Informatics facilitates societal
and cultural focus.
Informatics Pillars
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 9
9
Figure 2.0
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA) Program Vision
Note: This figure illustrates the MSHIA program vision.
Curriculum, Faculty
and Learning
Community that
promotes cultural
relevance
Content and experiences
focused on probem
solving and innovative
curriculm elements
Emphasis on leading
change as health care and
health services industires
undergo dramatic
transformation
Experiences that focus
on data driven decision
making and critical
thinking
Transformational Informatics
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 10
10
References
American Medical Informatics Association. (n.d.) Why informatics? Discovering health
insights: Accelerative healthcare transformation. AMIA: Informatics Professionals
Leading the Way. https://www.amia.org/why-informatics
McMains V. (2016) John Hopkins study suggests medical errors are third leading cause of death
in the U.S. https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death/
**## TheFivePillarsofInformatics.pdf**
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 1
1
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Position Paper: Masters Education in Health Informatics and Analytics and Transformational
Informatics
Dr. Suzanne Paone
Dr. Karen Bakuzonis
University of Arizona Global Campus School of Health Sciences
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA)
August 2019
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 2
2
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Call for Transformation
Current structures, cultures, and platforms in health and health services in the U.S. will
benefit from a transformational change. Amidst demands for transparency and improved quality
on the part of new generations of consumers’ traditional health organizations still trend low in
quality and cost performance metrics compared to global health systems. While the National call
for automation through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s Meaningful Use program
achieved levels of base transactional data gathering and pockets of quality improvement in health
provider systems, automation alone has done little to precipitate change. Furthermore,
government incentive programs hardly provide sustainable economic models. Clearly health
cost and quality problems have proven not to be a matter of pure investments in systems and
automation. There is a need to improve basic consumer trust in quality outcomes as basic as
medication error avoidance (McMains V., 2016). Likewise, while health care costs in the U.S.
have leveled off in the last few years, the industry, on the whole, is still a noncompetitive enigma
to most accomplished business leaders in other sectors of the economy as well as policy makers
and governing bodies.
What U.S. health care experiences in 2019 is not unlike what other sectors of the U.S.
economy have experienced in the past two decades. New models of doing business where
outperforming competitors on quality metrics while significantly reducing costs is the norm in
sectors such as financial services, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality to name a few. In these
industries, we see relatively standardized data collected through basic transactional business
processes that are now being used to improve the customer experience, sell more relevant
products, flatten hierarchical organizational structures and spawn new disruptive organizations in
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 3
3
mature industries. Policy pundits debate financing and entitlement structures for U.S. health care
and important philosophical questions as to whether health care coverage is a right or a privilege.
While this is valuable discourse, creative citizens, within and external to, existing health systems
see the call for transformation in the U.S. health economy regardless of political disposition.
Informatics, HIT and Data Science
As early as 2011 the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) published a
broad framework for the discipline of informatics consisting of five domains comprised of
practice in the areas of bioinformatics and clinical research, consumer health informatics, clinical
informatics and informatics focused in public & population health practice (Discovering Health
Insights (n.d.). This position aligns the use of informatics capabilities such as information
systems, policies regarding information governance, process change and adoption of data driven
practice as transformative. Pillars evolve to support broad transformation in all aspects of health
care deliver and health related service.
This framework of five inter-related pillars of informatics practice sets the stage for what
we call Transformational Informatics practice (TI). Transformational Informatics practice is the
set of processes, technologies and leadership skills that allow disruption of current health
structures, systems, and processes and sets the stage for industry innovation. Likewise, the rapid
installation of transactional information platforms in the health industry facilitates the gathering
of data and allows stakeholders to be able to utilize data science principles such as data analytics
to drop powerful inferences from these data assess. As we discussed below, the pillars alone are
not enough. Optimal Transformational Informatics practice includes the strategic amalgamation
of the five pillars of health informatics along with transformative leadership education skills to
produce emotionally intelligent leaders in the field.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 4
4
Five Pillars of Transformational Informatics (TI)
In order for structures, processes and systems related to health, heath care and health
services to remain relevant in the U.S. in coming decades and serve a local and global citizenry,
there must a convergence of collaborative informatics practice housed in the Five Pillars of
Transformational Informatics. Simply said, evolving actors in sectors of the health economy
must innovate creative ways to transform processes, systems, and cultural structures. While
much innovation comes from creative inspiration, passion, and dedication, risks can be mitigated
and rewards expedited if leaders make data driven decisions. Actors may be financial policy
makers, CEOs of traditional hospital structures, surgeons evaluating persons for procedures,
genetic counseling consultants advising families or children of elderly parents striving to make
appropriate risk-benefit based decisions at a societal, organizational and/or individual level. To
date, many of these actors have made decisions based on emotion. In the Information Age, tools
and methods exist to empower these actors to evolve into leaders. Actors become leaders and
leaders facilitate positive change. Figure 1.0
Transformational Informatics Education (TIE)
Higher educational organizations and programs are societal structures that must undergo
a fundamental transformation to align with the expectations of a viable health economy.
Rigorous and data driven graduate level programs including both evidence-based content and
dynamic pedagogical methods are needed to prepare a new generation of transformational
leaders. These programs must include both the technical content elements of a rigorous program
grounded in all Five Informatics Pillars and also evidence in fields of management science and
leadership that address content in Change Management, Disruptive Innovation, Effective
communication and Transformational Leadership practice. As seen in Figure 1.0, in the case of
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 5
5
TIE as applied to Health Informatics the foundation of graduate study lies in programs that
addresses all Five Pillars of Informatics practice. Similarly, the layer of the program that
facilities learners’ transformation as leaders lies in the execution of skills that employers
perceive as valuable in year after year surveys across organizations’ leaders:(NACE)
Just as the Nation’s heath cost/quality imperative was not as simple as implementing
electronic record platforms and revised coding standards, we posit that effective Health
Informatics studies are not as simple as linking curricula that cover the Five Pillars of Health
Informatics. As illustrated in Figure 1.0 the delivery of these content areas and their rich
histories of research and evidence must align with content in areas traditionally though of by
many biomedical and HIT educators and practitioners as organizational development or soft
skills. Implementing a health informatics curriculum that dutifully covers biomedical
informatics, consumer health, population and public health and clinical information systems is
not enough.
Original research in all areas of educational program development and effectiveness with
regard to information driven leadership transformation is imperative. Like other societal
structures, educational organizations and their partners should be data driven in their pursuits to
transform existing educational structures in the develop of innovative graduate educational
models. Many societal entities have a vested interested in efficient higher education and
effective workforce development and should support rigorous research in this domain. In the
meantime, an early set of Guiding Attributes for effective Transformational Informatics
Education (TIE) in graduate studies specific to health and health services is evolving.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 6
6
These attributes specific to health informatics and analytics graduate education include but
are not limited to the following:
1. Multidisciplinary: Programs that facilitate multidisciplinary learning inclusive of
professionals from backgrounds in health care delivery (providers & administrators,
information technology, health and non-healthcare backgrounds and health information
management (HIM)
2. Experiential: Educational cultures that support discourse, critical thinking, case-based,
experiential learning
3. Transforming: Programs that aim to support the transformation of learners during the
graduate educational process along the spectrum of advanced Emotional Intelligence (EI)
4. Integrative: Programs that integrate both historical evidence and research in the fields
represented by the Five Pillars as well as teaching and supporting learning in the realities
of disruptive change seen in the Information Age culture
5. Nimble: Structures and methods that are flexible, scalable and are built to leverage
unforeseen advancements in both learning & consumer-based technologies
In summary, as illustrated in Figure 2.0 graduate education in transformative informatics
practice the challenge for learners involves programs and content that are innovative, change
oriented, culturally competent in their delivery and emphasize the importance of data driven
decision making. Educational programs that are delivered utilizing this strategy effectively
integrate technical content in the field, such as the pillars of informatics in the health field along
with critical leadership skills that are necessary in the development of stakeholders who can
facilitate sweeping change. It is beholden upon every constituency who has a vested interest in
education to step back and assess both current programs and developing programs and
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 7
7
educational models in this light as we continue to explore innovative ways to better serve
societies needs in the evolving Information Age.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 8
8
Appendix A
Figure 1.0
The Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Note: This figure illustrates how the five pillars of transformation impact organizational
transformation.
Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Change Management, Innovation, Effective
Communication, Transforming Leadership
T
ra
n
s
la
ti
o
n
a
l
C
lin
ic
a
l
R
e
s
e
a
rc
h
C
lin
ic
a
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C
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n
s
u
m
e
r
H
e
a
lt
h
P
o
p
u
la
ti
o
n
/P
u
b
lic
H
e
a
lt
h
TransformationOrganizational Transformation
is achieved through Transforming
Leaders who enable change,
manage communication and
embrace innovation in their use
of strategic information assets.
• Translational Bioinformatics
enables innovation in biologic
and computing science .
• Clinical Research Informatics
informs discovery and
innovation.
• Clinical Informatics enables
change & improvements in
people & systems processes.
• Consumer Health
Informatics empowers
customers.
• Population & Public Health
Informatics facilitates societal
and cultural focus.
Informatics Pillars
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 9
9
Figure 2.0
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA) Program Vision
Note: This figure illustrates the MSHIA program vision.
Curriculum, Faculty
and Learning
Community that
promotes cultural
relevance
Content and experiences
focused on probem
solving and innovative
curriculm elements
Emphasis on leading
change as health care and
health services industires
undergo dramatic
transformation
Experiences that focus
on data driven decision
making and critical
thinking
Transformational Informatics
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 10
10
References
American Medical Informatics Association. (n.d.) Why informatics? Discovering health
insights: Accelerative healthcare transformation. AMIA: Informatics Professionals
Leading the Way. https://www.amia.org/why-informatics
McMains V. (2016) John Hopkins study suggests medical errors are third leading cause of death
in the U.S. https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death/
**## IDNScenarios.pdf**
IDN Scenarios
Option 1: Bay Bridge Health Network. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises five hospitals and 20 physician
practices, five long-term care facilities, two urgent service medical malls, and an
insurance plan covering 3 million lives in the San Francisco area. Strategic
imperatives for this IDN include 10% operational cost reductions that are
sustainable across business units and market share expansion through
virtualization strategies to compete with independent and retail urgent care
competitors in the region.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Multihospital Electronic Health Record Implementation (documentation,
results, clinical provider order entry [CPOE]; and decision support systems
[DSS])
o Practice Management System Clinical Implementation
o Practice Management System Billing, Registration, and Scheduling
Implementation
o Materials Management System Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
o Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Software Implementation
Option 2: Star Health Alliance. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises 20 hospitals; 50 specialty clinics in
cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology; three women’s health centers; 200
physician practices; and an insurance plan covering 5 million lives across three
different states in the Midwest. Strategic imperatives for this IDN include 10%
operational cost reductions that are sustainable across business units and the
realization of a 20% improvement in physician practice-based clinical quality
metrics specific to wellness activities related to cancer prevention, diabetes risk
management, and women’s health.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Practice Management System Clinical Implementation
o Practice Management System Billing, Registration, and Scheduling
Implementation
o Telehealth Monitoring Application Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Electronic Visits) Implementation
o Multimedia Patient Education System Implementation
Option 3: Palm Health Care Partners. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises 10 hospitals, five specialty centers in
cardiology and endocrinology, 50 physician practices, 40 senior living communities
including five skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), a home health agency, and two
insurance plans covering 5 million lives in the Florida–Atlantic coastal area.
Strategic imperatives for this IDN include 15% operational cost reductions that are
sustainable across business units and improved population health initiatives
involving comorbid populations of health plan members, including persons with
congestive heart failure (CHF) and diabetes and related comorbidities.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Software Implementation
o Case Management or Population Health Software Implementation
o Claims Management Implementation
o Business Intelligence (Data Warehousing and Visualization) System
Implementation
o Home Health Electronic Record Implementation for Clinical and Claims
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
**## SelectionofHealthInformaticsScenarios.pdf**
In your review of The Five Pillars of Informatics reflect on the various types of informatics
solutions, such as clinical provider order entry (CPOE) implementations, patient portal
implementations, or upgrades of patient management systems addressed as individual
project initiatives in HIA601. Compare the program to your chosen IDN. As you examine
each of the projects with your program, analyze how to implement these projects in
tandem to best address the stated goals of the IDN. Consider the following: Are the
systems being implemented in such a way that the IDN can gain measurable and
sustainable cost reductions?
For this week’s assignment, you will select an IDN from the provided IDN scenarios. You
will take the role of the program management office director (PMOD). In this role, you will
create a program management plan that will encompass several projects. These projects
are listed in each IDN scenario as “informatics implementation projects.” You will choose
one informatics implementation project for which you will take on the role of project
manager.
You should note that each informatics implementation project reflects a significant
investment for the organization. It’s the job of the PMOD (you) to determine how each
project and the program overall creates tangible benefits for the organization while
controlling technology costs. Remember that while each project is a discrete informatics
solution being implemented in the organization, the challenge for students is to assess the
interrelationships and interdependencies between these projects as they form an
informatics program.
Ensure you download The Five Pillars of Informatics (ATTACHED) white paper to guide your
strategy for the IDN. To do this, consider the following questions:
• Which informatics pillars does your program most clearly reflect?
• Think about the composition of the IDN and the stated goals and objectives in the
scenario: How will the implementation of multiple informatics solutions, in tandem,
strategically enable that organization to meet these goals?
In your paper,
• Formulate an initial strategy to manage the informatics implementation projects as
a comprehensive program for the chosen IDN.
• Analyze the challenges that you will face as you develop your informatics program
strategy for the chosen IDN.
• Discuss the goals of the IDN and how they contribute to a competitive strategy for
the organization.
[https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1](https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1)
[https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1](https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1)
• Explain how at least two of the health informatics pillars relate to the goals and
competitive strategy of the IDN based on research in the field.
• Describe how each project in the informatics program individually contributes to
achieving the goals of the IDN.
• Outline at least five interrelationships or dependencies between the projects in your
informatics program.
• Compose an initial statement of the risk you may encounter with the informatics
program. Please outline at least one technical, financial, and operational risk
identified.
The Selection of Health Informatics Scenarios paper
• must be at least 7 double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references
pages) and formatted according to APA Style.
• Must include at least 7 peer-review scholar articles plus the course textbook
• must include a separate title page with the following:
o title of paper in bold font
▪ Space should appear between the title and the rest of the
information on the title page.
o student’s name
o name of institution (The University of Arizona Global Campus)
o course name and number
o instructor’s name
o due date
Course Textbook:
Longest, B. B., Jr. (2015). Health program management: From development through
evaluation. (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
[https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apa-style](https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apa-style)
[https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121](https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121)
[https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121](https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121)
**## TheFivePillarsofInformatics.pdf**
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 1
1
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Position Paper: Masters Education in Health Informatics and Analytics and Transformational
Informatics
Dr. Suzanne Paone
Dr. Karen Bakuzonis
University of Arizona Global Campus School of Health Sciences
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA)
August 2019
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 2
2
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Call for Transformation
Current structures, cultures, and platforms in health and health services in the U.S. will
benefit from a transformational change. Amidst demands for transparency and improved quality
on the part of new generations of consumers’ traditional health organizations still trend low in
quality and cost performance metrics compared to global health systems. While the National call
for automation through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s Meaningful Use program
achieved levels of base transactional data gathering and pockets of quality improvement in health
provider systems, automation alone has done little to precipitate change. Furthermore,
government incentive programs hardly provide sustainable economic models. Clearly health
cost and quality problems have proven not to be a matter of pure investments in systems and
automation. There is a need to improve basic consumer trust in quality outcomes as basic as
medication error avoidance (McMains V., 2016). Likewise, while health care costs in the U.S.
have leveled off in the last few years, the industry, on the whole, is still a noncompetitive enigma
to most accomplished business leaders in other sectors of the economy as well as policy makers
and governing bodies.
What U.S. health care experiences in 2019 is not unlike what other sectors of the U.S.
economy have experienced in the past two decades. New models of doing business where
outperforming competitors on quality metrics while significantly reducing costs is the norm in
sectors such as financial services, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality to name a few. In these
industries, we see relatively standardized data collected through basic transactional business
processes that are now being used to improve the customer experience, sell more relevant
products, flatten hierarchical organizational structures and spawn new disruptive organizations in
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 3
3
mature industries. Policy pundits debate financing and entitlement structures for U.S. health care
and important philosophical questions as to whether health care coverage is a right or a privilege.
While this is valuable discourse, creative citizens, within and external to, existing health systems
see the call for transformation in the U.S. health economy regardless of political disposition.
Informatics, HIT and Data Science
As early as 2011 the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) published a
broad framework for the discipline of informatics consisting of five domains comprised of
practice in the areas of bioinformatics and clinical research, consumer health informatics, clinical
informatics and informatics focused in public & population health practice (Discovering Health
Insights (n.d.). This position aligns the use of informatics capabilities such as information
systems, policies regarding information governance, process change and adoption of data driven
practice as transformative. Pillars evolve to support broad transformation in all aspects of health
care deliver and health related service.
This framework of five inter-related pillars of informatics practice sets the stage for what
we call Transformational Informatics practice (TI). Transformational Informatics practice is the
set of processes, technologies and leadership skills that allow disruption of current health
structures, systems, and processes and sets the stage for industry innovation. Likewise, the rapid
installation of transactional information platforms in the health industry facilitates the gathering
of data and allows stakeholders to be able to utilize data science principles such as data analytics
to drop powerful inferences from these data assess. As we discussed below, the pillars alone are
not enough. Optimal Transformational Informatics practice includes the strategic amalgamation
of the five pillars of health informatics along with transformative leadership education skills to
produce emotionally intelligent leaders in the field.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 4
4
Five Pillars of Transformational Informatics (TI)
In order for structures, processes and systems related to health, heath care and health
services to remain relevant in the U.S. in coming decades and serve a local and global citizenry,
there must a convergence of collaborative informatics practice housed in the Five Pillars of
Transformational Informatics. Simply said, evolving actors in sectors of the health economy
must innovate creative ways to transform processes, systems, and cultural structures. While
much innovation comes from creative inspiration, passion, and dedication, risks can be mitigated
and rewards expedited if leaders make data driven decisions. Actors may be financial policy
makers, CEOs of traditional hospital structures, surgeons evaluating persons for procedures,
genetic counseling consultants advising families or children of elderly parents striving to make
appropriate risk-benefit based decisions at a societal, organizational and/or individual level. To
date, many of these actors have made decisions based on emotion. In the Information Age, tools
and methods exist to empower these actors to evolve into leaders. Actors become leaders and
leaders facilitate positive change. Figure 1.0
Transformational Informatics Education (TIE)
Higher educational organizations and programs are societal structures that must undergo
a fundamental transformation to align with the expectations of a viable health economy.
Rigorous and data driven graduate level programs including both evidence-based content and
dynamic pedagogical methods are needed to prepare a new generation of transformational
leaders. These programs must include both the technical content elements of a rigorous program
grounded in all Five Informatics Pillars and also evidence in fields of management science and
leadership that address content in Change Management, Disruptive Innovation, Effective
communication and Transformational Leadership practice. As seen in Figure 1.0, in the case of
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 5
5
TIE as applied to Health Informatics the foundation of graduate study lies in programs that
addresses all Five Pillars of Informatics practice. Similarly, the layer of the program that
facilities learners’ transformation as leaders lies in the execution of skills that employers
perceive as valuable in year after year surveys across organizations’ leaders:(NACE)
Just as the Nation’s heath cost/quality imperative was not as simple as implementing
electronic record platforms and revised coding standards, we posit that effective Health
Informatics studies are not as simple as linking curricula that cover the Five Pillars of Health
Informatics. As illustrated in Figure 1.0 the delivery of these content areas and their rich
histories of research and evidence must align with content in areas traditionally though of by
many biomedical and HIT educators and practitioners as organizational development or soft
skills. Implementing a health informatics curriculum that dutifully covers biomedical
informatics, consumer health, population and public health and clinical information systems is
not enough.
Original research in all areas of educational program development and effectiveness with
regard to information driven leadership transformation is imperative. Like other societal
structures, educational organizations and their partners should be data driven in their pursuits to
transform existing educational structures in the develop of innovative graduate educational
models. Many societal entities have a vested interested in efficient higher education and
effective workforce development and should support rigorous research in this domain. In the
meantime, an early set of Guiding Attributes for effective Transformational Informatics
Education (TIE) in graduate studies specific to health and health services is evolving.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 6
6
These attributes specific to health informatics and analytics graduate education include but
are not limited to the following:
1. Multidisciplinary: Programs that facilitate multidisciplinary learning inclusive of
professionals from backgrounds in health care delivery (providers & administrators,
information technology, health and non-healthcare backgrounds and health information
management (HIM)
2. Experiential: Educational cultures that support discourse, critical thinking, case-based,
experiential learning
3. Transforming: Programs that aim to support the transformation of learners during the
graduate educational process along the spectrum of advanced Emotional Intelligence (EI)
4. Integrative: Programs that integrate both historical evidence and research in the fields
represented by the Five Pillars as well as teaching and supporting learning in the realities
of disruptive change seen in the Information Age culture
5. Nimble: Structures and methods that are flexible, scalable and are built to leverage
unforeseen advancements in both learning & consumer-based technologies
In summary, as illustrated in Figure 2.0 graduate education in transformative informatics
practice the challenge for learners involves programs and content that are innovative, change
oriented, culturally competent in their delivery and emphasize the importance of data driven
decision making. Educational programs that are delivered utilizing this strategy effectively
integrate technical content in the field, such as the pillars of informatics in the health field along
with critical leadership skills that are necessary in the development of stakeholders who can
facilitate sweeping change. It is beholden upon every constituency who has a vested interest in
education to step back and assess both current programs and developing programs and
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 7
7
educational models in this light as we continue to explore innovative ways to better serve
societies needs in the evolving Information Age.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 8
8
Appendix A
Figure 1.0
The Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Note: This figure illustrates how the five pillars of transformation impact organizational
transformation.
Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Change Management, Innovation, Effective
Communication, Transforming Leadership
T
ra
n
s
la
ti
o
n
a
l
C
lin
ic
a
l
R
e
s
e
a
rc
h
C
lin
ic
a
l
C
o
n
s
u
m
e
r
H
e
a
lt
h
P
o
p
u
la
ti
o
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/P
u
b
lic
H
e
a
lt
h
TransformationOrganizational Transformation
is achieved through Transforming
Leaders who enable change,
manage communication and
embrace innovation in their use
of strategic information assets.
• Translational Bioinformatics
enables innovation in biologic
and computing science .
• Clinical Research Informatics
informs discovery and
innovation.
• Clinical Informatics enables
change & improvements in
people & systems processes.
• Consumer Health
Informatics empowers
customers.
• Population & Public Health
Informatics facilitates societal
and cultural focus.
Informatics Pillars
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 9
9
Figure 2.0
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA) Program Vision
Note: This figure illustrates the MSHIA program vision.
Curriculum, Faculty
and Learning
Community that
promotes cultural
relevance
Content and experiences
focused on probem
solving and innovative
curriculm elements
Emphasis on leading
change as health care and
health services industires
undergo dramatic
transformation
Experiences that focus
on data driven decision
making and critical
thinking
Transformational Informatics
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 10
10
References
American Medical Informatics Association. (n.d.) Why informatics? Discovering health
insights: Accelerative healthcare transformation. AMIA: Informatics Professionals
Leading the Way. https://www.amia.org/why-informatics
McMains V. (2016) John Hopkins study suggests medical errors are third leading cause of death
in the U.S. https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death/
**## IDNScenarios.pdf**
IDN Scenarios
Option 1: Bay Bridge Health Network. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises five hospitals and 20 physician
practices, five long-term care facilities, two urgent service medical malls, and an
insurance plan covering 3 million lives in the San Francisco area. Strategic
imperatives for this IDN include 10% operational cost reductions that are
sustainable across business units and market share expansion through
virtualization strategies to compete with independent and retail urgent care
competitors in the region.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Multihospital Electronic Health Record Implementation (documentation,
results, clinical provider order entry [CPOE]; and decision support systems
[DSS])
o Practice Management System Clinical Implementation
o Practice Management System Billing, Registration, and Scheduling
Implementation
o Materials Management System Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
o Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Software Implementation
Option 2: Star Health Alliance. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises 20 hospitals; 50 specialty clinics in
cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology; three women’s health centers; 200
physician practices; and an insurance plan covering 5 million lives across three
different states in the Midwest. Strategic imperatives for this IDN include 10%
operational cost reductions that are sustainable across business units and the
realization of a 20% improvement in physician practice-based clinical quality
metrics specific to wellness activities related to cancer prevention, diabetes risk
management, and women’s health.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Practice Management System Clinical Implementation
o Practice Management System Billing, Registration, and Scheduling
Implementation
o Telehealth Monitoring Application Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
o Personal Health Record (Electronic Visits) Implementation
o Multimedia Patient Education System Implementation
Option 3: Palm Health Care Partners. Consider the following for this scenario:
• This integrated delivery network comprises 10 hospitals, five specialty centers in
cardiology and endocrinology, 50 physician practices, 40 senior living communities
including five skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), a home health agency, and two
insurance plans covering 5 million lives in the Florida–Atlantic coastal area.
Strategic imperatives for this IDN include 15% operational cost reductions that are
sustainable across business units and improved population health initiatives
involving comorbid populations of health plan members, including persons with
congestive heart failure (CHF) and diabetes and related comorbidities.
• Informatics Implementation Projects: Your individual project takes the form of an
initiative. Choose one informatics implementation initiative from the following list:
o Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Software Implementation
o Case Management or Population Health Software Implementation
o Claims Management Implementation
o Business Intelligence (Data Warehousing and Visualization) System
Implementation
o Home Health Electronic Record Implementation for Clinical and Claims
o Personal Health Record (Patient Portal) Implementation
**## SelectionofHealthInformaticsScenarios.pdf**
In your review of The Five Pillars of Informatics reflect on the various types of informatics
solutions, such as clinical provider order entry (CPOE) implementations, patient portal
implementations, or upgrades of patient management systems addressed as individual
project initiatives in HIA601. Compare the program to your chosen IDN. As you examine
each of the projects with your program, analyze how to implement these projects in
tandem to best address the stated goals of the IDN. Consider the following: Are the
systems being implemented in such a way that the IDN can gain measurable and
sustainable cost reductions?
For this week’s assignment, you will select an IDN from the provided IDN scenarios. You
will take the role of the program management office director (PMOD). In this role, you will
create a program management plan that will encompass several projects. These projects
are listed in each IDN scenario as “informatics implementation projects.” You will choose
one informatics implementation project for which you will take on the role of project
manager.
You should note that each informatics implementation project reflects a significant
investment for the organization. It’s the job of the PMOD (you) to determine how each
project and the program overall creates tangible benefits for the organization while
controlling technology costs. Remember that while each project is a discrete informatics
solution being implemented in the organization, the challenge for students is to assess the
interrelationships and interdependencies between these projects as they form an
informatics program.
Ensure you download The Five Pillars of Informatics (ATTACHED) white paper to guide your
strategy for the IDN. To do this, consider the following questions:
• Which informatics pillars does your program most clearly reflect?
• Think about the composition of the IDN and the stated goals and objectives in the
scenario: How will the implementation of multiple informatics solutions, in tandem,
strategically enable that organization to meet these goals?
In your paper,
• Formulate an initial strategy to manage the informatics implementation projects as
a comprehensive program for the chosen IDN.
• Analyze the challenges that you will face as you develop your informatics program
strategy for the chosen IDN.
• Discuss the goals of the IDN and how they contribute to a competitive strategy for
the organization.
[https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1](https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1)
[https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1](https://uagc.instructure.com/courses/156180/files/24236194?wrap=1)
• Explain how at least two of the health informatics pillars relate to the goals and
competitive strategy of the IDN based on research in the field.
• Describe how each project in the informatics program individually contributes to
achieving the goals of the IDN.
• Outline at least five interrelationships or dependencies between the projects in your
informatics program.
• Compose an initial statement of the risk you may encounter with the informatics
program. Please outline at least one technical, financial, and operational risk
identified.
The Selection of Health Informatics Scenarios paper
• must be at least 7 double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references
pages) and formatted according to APA Style.
• Must include at least 7 peer-review scholar articles plus the course textbook
• must include a separate title page with the following:
o title of paper in bold font
▪ Space should appear between the title and the rest of the
information on the title page.
o student’s name
o name of institution (The University of Arizona Global Campus)
o course name and number
o instructor’s name
o due date
Course Textbook:
Longest, B. B., Jr. (2015). Health program management: From development through
evaluation. (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
[https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apa-style](https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apa-style)
[https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121](https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121)
[https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121](https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=7104121)
**## TheFivePillarsofInformatics.pdf**
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 1
1
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Position Paper: Masters Education in Health Informatics and Analytics and Transformational
Informatics
Dr. Suzanne Paone
Dr. Karen Bakuzonis
University of Arizona Global Campus School of Health Sciences
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA)
August 2019
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 2
2
The Five Pillars of Informatics
Call for Transformation
Current structures, cultures, and platforms in health and health services in the U.S. will
benefit from a transformational change. Amidst demands for transparency and improved quality
on the part of new generations of consumers’ traditional health organizations still trend low in
quality and cost performance metrics compared to global health systems. While the National call
for automation through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s Meaningful Use program
achieved levels of base transactional data gathering and pockets of quality improvement in health
provider systems, automation alone has done little to precipitate change. Furthermore,
government incentive programs hardly provide sustainable economic models. Clearly health
cost and quality problems have proven not to be a matter of pure investments in systems and
automation. There is a need to improve basic consumer trust in quality outcomes as basic as
medication error avoidance (McMains V., 2016). Likewise, while health care costs in the U.S.
have leveled off in the last few years, the industry, on the whole, is still a noncompetitive enigma
to most accomplished business leaders in other sectors of the economy as well as policy makers
and governing bodies.
What U.S. health care experiences in 2019 is not unlike what other sectors of the U.S.
economy have experienced in the past two decades. New models of doing business where
outperforming competitors on quality metrics while significantly reducing costs is the norm in
sectors such as financial services, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality to name a few. In these
industries, we see relatively standardized data collected through basic transactional business
processes that are now being used to improve the customer experience, sell more relevant
products, flatten hierarchical organizational structures and spawn new disruptive organizations in
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 3
3
mature industries. Policy pundits debate financing and entitlement structures for U.S. health care
and important philosophical questions as to whether health care coverage is a right or a privilege.
While this is valuable discourse, creative citizens, within and external to, existing health systems
see the call for transformation in the U.S. health economy regardless of political disposition.
Informatics, HIT and Data Science
As early as 2011 the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) published a
broad framework for the discipline of informatics consisting of five domains comprised of
practice in the areas of bioinformatics and clinical research, consumer health informatics, clinical
informatics and informatics focused in public & population health practice (Discovering Health
Insights (n.d.). This position aligns the use of informatics capabilities such as information
systems, policies regarding information governance, process change and adoption of data driven
practice as transformative. Pillars evolve to support broad transformation in all aspects of health
care deliver and health related service.
This framework of five inter-related pillars of informatics practice sets the stage for what
we call Transformational Informatics practice (TI). Transformational Informatics practice is the
set of processes, technologies and leadership skills that allow disruption of current health
structures, systems, and processes and sets the stage for industry innovation. Likewise, the rapid
installation of transactional information platforms in the health industry facilitates the gathering
of data and allows stakeholders to be able to utilize data science principles such as data analytics
to drop powerful inferences from these data assess. As we discussed below, the pillars alone are
not enough. Optimal Transformational Informatics practice includes the strategic amalgamation
of the five pillars of health informatics along with transformative leadership education skills to
produce emotionally intelligent leaders in the field.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 4
4
Five Pillars of Transformational Informatics (TI)
In order for structures, processes and systems related to health, heath care and health
services to remain relevant in the U.S. in coming decades and serve a local and global citizenry,
there must a convergence of collaborative informatics practice housed in the Five Pillars of
Transformational Informatics. Simply said, evolving actors in sectors of the health economy
must innovate creative ways to transform processes, systems, and cultural structures. While
much innovation comes from creative inspiration, passion, and dedication, risks can be mitigated
and rewards expedited if leaders make data driven decisions. Actors may be financial policy
makers, CEOs of traditional hospital structures, surgeons evaluating persons for procedures,
genetic counseling consultants advising families or children of elderly parents striving to make
appropriate risk-benefit based decisions at a societal, organizational and/or individual level. To
date, many of these actors have made decisions based on emotion. In the Information Age, tools
and methods exist to empower these actors to evolve into leaders. Actors become leaders and
leaders facilitate positive change. Figure 1.0
Transformational Informatics Education (TIE)
Higher educational organizations and programs are societal structures that must undergo
a fundamental transformation to align with the expectations of a viable health economy.
Rigorous and data driven graduate level programs including both evidence-based content and
dynamic pedagogical methods are needed to prepare a new generation of transformational
leaders. These programs must include both the technical content elements of a rigorous program
grounded in all Five Informatics Pillars and also evidence in fields of management science and
leadership that address content in Change Management, Disruptive Innovation, Effective
communication and Transformational Leadership practice. As seen in Figure 1.0, in the case of
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 5
5
TIE as applied to Health Informatics the foundation of graduate study lies in programs that
addresses all Five Pillars of Informatics practice. Similarly, the layer of the program that
facilities learners’ transformation as leaders lies in the execution of skills that employers
perceive as valuable in year after year surveys across organizations’ leaders:(NACE)
Just as the Nation’s heath cost/quality imperative was not as simple as implementing
electronic record platforms and revised coding standards, we posit that effective Health
Informatics studies are not as simple as linking curricula that cover the Five Pillars of Health
Informatics. As illustrated in Figure 1.0 the delivery of these content areas and their rich
histories of research and evidence must align with content in areas traditionally though of by
many biomedical and HIT educators and practitioners as organizational development or soft
skills. Implementing a health informatics curriculum that dutifully covers biomedical
informatics, consumer health, population and public health and clinical information systems is
not enough.
Original research in all areas of educational program development and effectiveness with
regard to information driven leadership transformation is imperative. Like other societal
structures, educational organizations and their partners should be data driven in their pursuits to
transform existing educational structures in the develop of innovative graduate educational
models. Many societal entities have a vested interested in efficient higher education and
effective workforce development and should support rigorous research in this domain. In the
meantime, an early set of Guiding Attributes for effective Transformational Informatics
Education (TIE) in graduate studies specific to health and health services is evolving.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 6
6
These attributes specific to health informatics and analytics graduate education include but
are not limited to the following:
1. Multidisciplinary: Programs that facilitate multidisciplinary learning inclusive of
professionals from backgrounds in health care delivery (providers & administrators,
information technology, health and non-healthcare backgrounds and health information
management (HIM)
2. Experiential: Educational cultures that support discourse, critical thinking, case-based,
experiential learning
3. Transforming: Programs that aim to support the transformation of learners during the
graduate educational process along the spectrum of advanced Emotional Intelligence (EI)
4. Integrative: Programs that integrate both historical evidence and research in the fields
represented by the Five Pillars as well as teaching and supporting learning in the realities
of disruptive change seen in the Information Age culture
5. Nimble: Structures and methods that are flexible, scalable and are built to leverage
unforeseen advancements in both learning & consumer-based technologies
In summary, as illustrated in Figure 2.0 graduate education in transformative informatics
practice the challenge for learners involves programs and content that are innovative, change
oriented, culturally competent in their delivery and emphasize the importance of data driven
decision making. Educational programs that are delivered utilizing this strategy effectively
integrate technical content in the field, such as the pillars of informatics in the health field along
with critical leadership skills that are necessary in the development of stakeholders who can
facilitate sweeping change. It is beholden upon every constituency who has a vested interest in
education to step back and assess both current programs and developing programs and
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 7
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educational models in this light as we continue to explore innovative ways to better serve
societies needs in the evolving Information Age.
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 8
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Appendix A
Figure 1.0
The Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Note: This figure illustrates how the five pillars of transformation impact organizational
transformation.
Five Pillars of Transformational Health Informatics
Change Management, Innovation, Effective
Communication, Transforming Leadership
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TransformationOrganizational Transformation
is achieved through Transforming
Leaders who enable change,
manage communication and
embrace innovation in their use
of strategic information assets.
• Translational Bioinformatics
enables innovation in biologic
and computing science .
• Clinical Research Informatics
informs discovery and
innovation.
• Clinical Informatics enables
change & improvements in
people & systems processes.
• Consumer Health
Informatics empowers
customers.
• Population & Public Health
Informatics facilitates societal
and cultural focus.
Informatics Pillars
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 9
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Figure 2.0
Master of Science in Informatics and Analytics (MSHIA) Program Vision
Note: This figure illustrates the MSHIA program vision.
Curriculum, Faculty
and Learning
Community that
promotes cultural
relevance
Content and experiences
focused on probem
solving and innovative
curriculm elements
Emphasis on leading
change as health care and
health services industires
undergo dramatic
transformation
Experiences that focus
on data driven decision
making and critical
thinking
Transformational Informatics
THE FIVE PILLARS OF INFORMATICS 10
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References
American Medical Informatics Association. (n.d.) Why informatics? Discovering health
insights: Accelerative healthcare transformation. AMIA: Informatics Professionals
Leading the Way. https://www.amia.org/why-informatics
McMains V. (2016) John Hopkins study suggests medical errors are third leading cause of death
in the U.S. https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/05/03/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death/