How Do Informaticians and IT-Architects Collaborate, or Not? A Case Study from a Public Health Care Provider

Despite years of work from both informaticians and IT-architects interoperability within healthcare is still low. This explorative case study performed on a well-staffed public health care provider shows that the involved roles were unclear, processes did not include each other, and that tooling was incompatible. However, interest in collaboration was high and technical advances and inhouse development were seen as incentives for increased collaboration.

The physical therapist informatician as an enabler of capacity in a data-driven environment: an administrative case report

Background and purpose: Many professions including nursing and medicine have developed subspecialties in the field of clinical informatics to assist in the management of patient outcomes. This report describes the development of a physical therapist-informatician (PT-I) that occurred concurrently with the introduction of an electronic health record (EHR). Case description: A physical therapist supervisor participated in professional development to become a full-time PT-I within the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (DPMR) of an academic medical center. Cycles of needs assessment and gap analysis produced a nimble process that evolved to meet a shifting environment and to incorporate lessons learned. Outcomes: The development of a full-time PT-I enabled the DPMR to become the stewards of mobility data across the enterprise. The benefits that accrued, as a result, included enhanced success of EHR adoption, decreased revenue loss, and actionable, meaningful data use. Discussion: Having a PT-I facilitate the adoption of informatics into DPMR culture enabled participation in enterprise-level EHR optimization. Standardized data from the EHR was used to improve the performance of clinicians throughout the hospital. The field of physical therapy could benefit from a targeted use of informatics to articulate the EHR workflow and data needs.