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-Health informatics helps provide information to make decisions
-Driving forces = increase efficacy (decrease cost and increase productivity), improve patient outcomes and safety

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-Lecture discussion included, automation of something in daily lives, use of technology in day to day and transparency.

-During the lecture we talked about various things regarding informatics. The use of epic and how it can be used to share information across healthcare systems. At the same time, data sharing can lead to too much information being provided too fast. Various examples were given regarding things like lab results, imaging, and what happens at primary care offices.

-The progression of technology provides useful benefits for health care professionals, but at the same time, there are drawbacks as well.

-Technology in daily lives? What can we do to make our lives easier and what can we do to prevent loss of social skills?

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"Transparency" is a watchword in management these days, and it's easy to understand why. After all, if people conduct their work in plain view, won't they be more open and accountable? Won't they flag and fix problems more easily, and share information and their good ideas more freely?

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Overview and Objectives

ID Key stakeholders that developed informatics competencies

Describe goals of the TIGER initiative

Lecture notes:
-Driving forces for nursing informatics: QSEN, AACN, Tiger initiatives
-QSEN= 6 competencies: Patient-centered care, teamwork, EVP, QI, and informatics. These 6 competencies are divided into three categories ==> knowledge skills and attitudes
-AACN: Accreditation body of various programs
-TIGER initiative: Advancing the integration of health informatics to transform practice, education, and consumer engagement. The goal is to utilize technology to improve delivery of patient care

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Tiger initiative:
-This was a really hard concept for me to understand so I tried to research various different resources that would help me understand the initiative.

What I learned from the article:
-Tiger was founded in 2004 to allow for the integration of technology into practice to improve patient outcomes and safety and to reduce costs.
-9 recommended areas of change
-Tiger Virtual Learning environment (VLE) --> personalized approach to learning about health informatics technology

In conclusion, it is an initiative to increase the knowledge of informatics in healthcare. Not only is knowledge important, but nurses should understand how this information can be utilized to improve various areas of patient care.

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Health information and communication technology (health IT) has never been an end in itself. It is an instrument for leveraging the strategy of an organisation and thus enabling that organisation to be more competitive with better clinical outcomes, lean processes and maximised patient safety at affordable costs. These are the targets against which health IT must be measured and benchmarked. 1,2

Despite the growing adoption of health IT worldwide and in Europe, ³ there are still many factors at work that pose a threat to successful dissemination and adoption. Some of the biggest threats include: poor software quality, insufficient usability, lack of interoperability, inadequate implementation, not enough user participation, mismatch of clinical and IT processes, and users who simply do not know how to best make use of the technology.

This starts with not knowing that a certain application is available4 and ends with the wrong interpretation of the information provided by the system. In between these two end points, there are many snares along the IT routinisation process, which definitely concern the clinicians as primary users. In the end, it boils down to the fact that improper use of information technology limits the ability to provide good patient care. This is ultimately why informatics education among clinicians has become so important.

The understanding of education as a leverage to access and utilise information and to develop an information landscape through technology, has led to an increase in activities to provide recommendations for health informatics education. ⁵⁻¹⁰ These recommendations address informatics competencies of all persons with direct patient contact including nurses, the largest group of healthcare professionals. They constitute professionals who best oversee the trajectory of a patient from a care process point of view within an organisation and beyond.

However, informatics education among nurses as well as other clinicians is still not a 'fast-selling item' that has found its place in curriculum despite widespread recommendations. Informatics education therefore needs to be boosted among clinicians, as there are different understandings what informatics education should target: basic computer skills, information and knowledge management competencies, or something in between?

In any case, there needs to be an advocate to inspire the integration of informatics education. Ideally, this advocate will embrace and intertwine diverse perspectives: the academic teaching point of view, the healthcare providers', the healthcare professionals', the IT vendors' and the scientific perspective. Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) is that advocate. ¹¹

Founded in 2004, the TIGER Initiative emerged as a grass roots effort to allow clinicians and consumers to make better use of informatics tools, principles, theories and practices by interweaving these technologies into practice, education and research for the sake of better outcomes, patient safety and cost reductions.

Since TIGER held its first invitational conference in 2006, it has proven to be a platform and an information hub for many organisations and individuals. More than 70 organisations participated in the TIGER Summit, and each agreed that nursing must integrate informatics technology into education and practice. Each has pledged to incorporate the TIGER vision and action steps into their organisation's strategic plans. All of them fulfilled a critical role by distributing the TIGER Summit Summary Report within their network to engage additional support for this agenda.

After the initial summit, members of this initiative moved onto TIGER Phase II. Nurses across the United States, from differing aspects of the profession, joined in the work of nine collaboratives to develop recommendations for change in nine critical areas:

Education and faculty development

Staff development

Informatics competencies

Standards and interoperability

Usability and clinical application design

Leadership development

National Health Information Technology Agenda

Virtual demonstration centre

Consumer and personal health record

These reports, including a tenth one on Magnet©, are available on the TIGER landing pages on HIMSS.org. ¹² These themes can be clustered into the overarching problem areas:

1. Workforce development

2. National health IT initiatives

3. Improving technology solutions

In 2012, the TIGER International Committee was launched to broaden the reach of TIGER activities beyond the United States of America and to empower educators worldwide to act as change agents for paving the way towards greater awareness, acceptance, better design, and use of health IT. The results of TIGER's North America activities combined with the perspective of the international TIGER community, were compiled in a book on nursing informatics with contributions from North and South America, Europe, and Asia. ¹³ This book highlights the dialogue between experts from different fields and cultures. The TIGER International Committee, which consists of members from 21 countries, regularly convenes at major international medical and health informatics conferences (for example, MEDINFO, Nursing Informatics, ¹⁴ Medical Informatics Europe (MIE)) and organises workshops to inform community members about the latest developments and offerings while engaging them to get involved in TIGER activities. Focused on better preparing all members of the clinical workforce to use technology and informatics and to promote interprofessional cooperation through health IT, TIGER transitioned from a standalone foundation to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in 2014 under Clinical Informatics.

The TIGER Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

Rooted in the early activities for setting up a virtual demonstration centre, the TIGER Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) emerged as a web-based education portal for academic professionals, students, adult learners, and clinical educators. The VLE is a dynamic resource that contains materials reflective of core international competencies.

Supporting the classic eLearning approach, the VLE allows a personalised approach to learning and expanding one's own skillset and knowledge on important health IT subjects in a self-paced learning format. The blended learning approach reflected in the VLE makes it possible to integrate health IT modules and resources into classroom curriculum to share common learning resources across academic institutions and healthcare provider organisations. The VLE highlights the work of various collaborators and curricula such as:

The ONC (Office of the National Coordinator) in the USA

Pharmacy curriculum

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) curriculum

Courses developed by HIMSS, amongst others

Beyond the standard learning material, users can also download Electronic Health Record (EHR) demo software, participate in live webinars designed to get to know leaders in the health IT field. These live webinars are recorded and available on demand within the VLE event theatre.

The TIGER International Competency Synthesis Project

While the VLE connects academic institutions and organisations to health IT curriculum and resources in a bottom up manner, the International Competency Synthesis Project seeks to structure the large field of clinical informatics education in a top down approach. This effort should help experts, educators, and students save time with finding their way through the jungle of new and changed professional roles, emerging job opportunities and additional knowledge and skills to cope with the technological challenges.

The TIGER International Competency Synthesis Project therefore aims to investigate global informatics requirements in relation to core competencies to match them with national and regional needs. This is achieved by employing a mixed methods approach for global surveys and country specific case studies.

The most recent survey included opinions from 21 countries: North and South America (four countries), Europe (10 countries), Asia (five countries) and Australia/Pacific (two countries). An average of two in-country high profile experts rated the relevance of 24 informatics core competencies within five domains in nursing. Table 1 shows the top six core competencies per domain. Each domain was characterised by 1-3 lead core competencies with (nearly) the same mean percentage of relevance (in italics, Table 1) and by a specific profile of core competencies.

There was a good mixture of genuine IT competencies (for example, information and communication systems), IT-related management competencies (for example, strategic management and leadership), and legal and ethical issues. On average, all 24 informatics core competencies were rated above a 50% relevance rate in the domains of IT management in nursing, nursing management, and interprofessional coordination of care, which demonstrates their strong information focus.

However, clinical nursing and quality management also showed considerable levels of the relevance for clinical informatics. Within these two domains, almost all 24 informatics core competencies were found at least 50% important.

At this time, case studies from Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal and Switzerland have been compiled. The material synthesised from these countries include published recommendations from previously consolidated activities (Ireland, New Zealand), survey data (Austria, Germany, Switzerland), competencies based on academic programmes (Finland, Portugal) and research project results (Philippines). Several case studies took relevant international literature into account (Austria, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines and Switzerland) and founded their recommendations based on the scientific literature. Furthermore, Ireland, Philippines and Portugal distinguished between competencies on 2-3 education levels.

All of the core competencies listed in the case studies are also reflected within the survey. It is important to point out that the case study competencies demonstrated greater detail and better illustrated the impact and meaning of the core competencies. For example "Uses strategies to optimise application use after implementation (benefits realisation)" and "Participates in budget activities for procurement and maintenance of the system" were listed as activities under the financial management competency in the Philippine case study.

Both the survey and case studies showed that not only IT-related competencies were recommendable but also competencies rooted in management (such as change management and stakeholder management). Change and stakeholder management issues could be disclosed in seven out of the eight case studies.

So far the International Competency Synthesis Project studied informatics competencies for nurses as the largest health professional group, who are often the ones with the greatest exposure to health IT systems. We aim to include other health professions in the near future. However, we do not expect a very large difference among the clinical professions due to the fact that the 24 proposed core competencies were compiled from interprofessional recommendations.

Potential impact for European hospitals

As a grass roots initiative TIGER welcomes new organisational and individual members to contribute to its mission, objectives and activities. As an international initiative, TIGER strives to provide knowledge and solutions that are globally applicable and strongly fosters cross-country learning. The VLE and the International Competency Synthesis Project mirror these aspirations perfectly. Both approaches pursue the principle of balancing global and regional needs.

The goal of the International Competency Synthesis Project is to develop a recommendation framework that encompasses different clinical professions, different roles, different scenarios and different cultures to address different national healthcare systems. Moreover, this framework will also allow for commonalities to become visible and will unveil avenues for collaboration.

There is much to gain when healthcare organisations, as the pure form of expert organisations, adopt and maintain applicable information and knowledge management systems. TIGER accompanies this process from the perspective of education and from the view of a learning healthcare system.

1. Liebe JD, Hübner U. Developing and Trialling an Independent, Scalable and Repeatable IT-benchmarking Procedure for Healthcare Organisations. Methods Inf Med 2013;52(4):360-9.

2. Adler-Milstein J et al. Benchmarking health IT among OECD countries: better data for better policy. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2014;21:111-6.

3. European Commission. European Hospital Survey: Benchmarking the Deployment of eHealth Services (2012-2013). ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=4713. Last accessed April 2016.

4. Liebe J, Hüsers J, Hübner U. Investigating the roots of successful IT adoption processes - an empirical study exploring the shared awareness-knowledge of Directors of Nursing and Chief Information Officers. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 2016;16(1):10.

5. Global Health Workforce Council (GHWC), Global Academic Curricula Competencies for Health Information Professionals, The AHIMA Foundation, Chicago, 2015. http://www.ahimafoundation.org/downloads/pdfs/Global%20Health%20Informat... _Draft%20for%20Public%20Comment_Final%20%282%29.pdf. Last accessed April 2016.

6. Australian Health Informatics Education Council (AHIEC), Health Informatics Scope, Careers and Competencies Version 1.9. Australian Health Informatics Education Council, 2011. http://www.ahiec.org.au/docs/AHIEC_HI_Scope_Careers_and_Competencies_V1-.... Last accessed April 2016.

7. Kulikowski CA et al. AMIA Board white paper: definition of biomedical informatics and specification of core competencies for graduate education in the discipline. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2012;19(6):931-38.

8. Mantas J et al. Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Methods Inf Med 2010;49:105-20.

9. Canada's Health Informatics Association (COACH), Health Informatics Professional Core Competencies v3.0, Canada's Health Informatics Association, National Office, Toronto, 2012.

10. HITCOMP - Health IT Competencies. http://hitcomp.siframework.org/. Last accessed April 2016.

11. The TIGER Initiative. http://www.himss.org/professional-development/tiger-initiative. Last accessed April 2016.

12. TIGER Initiative Reports. http://www.himss.org/resourcelibrary/Topiclist.aspx?MetaDataID=4132. Last accessed April 2016.

13. Ball MJ et al. Nursing Informatics: Where Technology and Caring Meet. 4th Edition, Springer-Verlag, London, 2011.

14. Hübner U et al. Towards Implementing a Global Competency-Based Nursing and Clinical Informatics Curriculum: Applying the TIGER Initiative. Proceedings of the International Conference on Nursing Informatics (NI2016) Geneva, forthcoming.

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Health information and communication technology (health IT) has never been an end in itself. It is an instrument for leveraging the strategy of an organisation and thus enabling that organisation to be more competitive with better clinical outcomes, lean processes and maximised patient safety at affordable costs.

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Overview and Objectives:
-Define what usabiligy means for healthcare workers
-Discuss the effect of interoperability has on health care

Lecture Notes:

Interoperability ==> Defined as the utilization of information that has been exchanged between two or more systems (Think of EHR)

Why is this important and how is it used... What do we need to know?
-- Standardization of terminology --> Helps to ensure continuity between systems (doctors can share information)
--> Utilizing data to monitor the needs, interventions, and outcomes: QI projects, identifying how many people in the community do health screenings
-- Terms vs concepts: i.e. the word good

Big Data ==> How is this used?
*Storage and analysis of data collected
*Volume, velocity, variety, veracity, value

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Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT

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- I have been very fortunate to have entered the healthcare system at a time when EHR is the most common form of medical record keeping. However, during one of my clinical rotations I did have to intern at a hospital which was a small community hospital that utilized paper charts, although they did utilize an EHR, it was old and not user-friendly. I have come to really value the improvements in healthcare EHR has made.

-EHR allows for data sharing between providers to allow for information to be readily available. This is especially important in the emergency room where specialty consultation is always needed. If a provider had a concern for example regarding an Echo or chest x-ray, pulmonologists and cardiologists can easily have access to the images. Rather than having to rely on paper records which can delay patient care, information can be shared a lot easier.

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Interoperability is one of the most complex and challenging imperatives for healthcare. But it's a matter healthcare chief information officers and other health IT leaders must tackle.

A good way of understanding interoperability and how to solve it is by looking at where healthcare-provider organizations will be making interoperability investments in the future. That's what Healthcare IT News is doing in this second article in its latest feature series, "Health IT Investment: The Next Five Years."

For this series, we speak with health IT leaders, primarily chief information officers (CIOs), to learn from them the path forward through the priorities they set with their investments in six categories: AI and machine learning; interoperability; telehealth, connected health and remote patient monitoring; cybersecurity; electronic health records and population health; and emerging technology and other systems. Click here to read the first feature, on AI and machine learning.

This second feature focuses on interoperability. The health IT leaders sharing their plans for the next five years in this second installment in the series include:

Cara Babachicos, senior vice president and CIO at South Shore Health, a health system based in Weymouth, Massachusetts.

Matt Hocks, COO at Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanford Health, a $6 billion health system serving a predominantly rural population over a four-state footprint with both payer and provider arms.

Dr. J. Michael Kramer, chief medical informatics officer at OhioHealth, a health system based in Dublin, Ohio.

Mike Mistretta, vice president and CIO at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.

B.J. Moore, CIO of Providence, a health system that operates 52 hospitals across seven states - Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Washington, California, New Mexico and Texas.

Michael Restuccia, senior vice president and CIO at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Umberto Tachinardi, CIO at Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana.

These experts offer board members, fellow C-suite officers, IT managers and workers in the trenches invaluable guidance in this latest feature article in the series.

A big, huge, whopping 'yes'

Mistretta of Virginia Hospital Center says it's a big "yes" when it comes to investing in interoperability over the next five years - but not in the manner one might expect.

"Most of our spend is not going to be [on] exchanging results with other providers; I think we have come about as far as we are going to get with a national patient identifier being put into place, and that doesn't appear to be a priority for our government," he stated. "Where I see the spend taking place is putting more power into the hands of our patients.

"The bi-directional transfer of patient information where they can upload and download on demand and access their information will continue to be enhanced in the next five years."

COVID-19 provided a huge proving ground for device interoperability since patients were looking for low-contact solutions to minimize exposure, Mistretta said.

"We started this initiative earlier this year with the rollout of our branded app," he noted. "We also have a product called OB Connect we are giving to low-risk expectant mothers where we provide a scale and ultrasound at home to self-monitor their progress.

"Prior to their scheduled checkup appointment, they record information that is reviewed by a midwife at their practice, and if there are no issues, they skip that appointment," he continued. "I see more of these technologies emerging moving forward with other diagnoses that will be huge patient satisfiers. The care-at-home market is where investments are going to be made."

Another area that has seen a tremendous amount of progress but is only beginning to mature in this space is direct addressing, he said.

"Using this capability to transmit data between different points of care can bring tremendous value, especially at the physician practice level," he observed. "The issue is most independent and small practices simply don't understand the technology in order to use it.

"We have had physicians provide Gmail addresses in their credentialing applications when we request their address for patient exchange purposes, which shows we haven't done an effective job in the industry rolling this out," he continued. "Look for this simple exchange method to grow and take off in the next five years."

Standards and APIs

Moore of Providence has been eyeing standards and APIs as a place of investment to help with the problem of interoperability.

"Obviously, things like FHIR [Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resouces] and other standards help with interoperability," he stated. "But we don't just see standards moving data around as a way of solving interoperability. We focus on the simplified side of things.

"So use PACS as an example," he continued. "We have kind of islands of PACS [picture archiving and communication systems] throughout our enterprise; where images are locked up is proprietary, or you need to use a proprietary reader. We're in the process of moving all of those images to Microsoft Azure and then using vendor-neutral readers to read that."

So one can solve interoperability through application programming interfaces (APIs) and standards, but this is an example where there is no reason to get 300 systems to talk with each other when one can just change the core underlying technology, he added.

The importance of interoperability is growing

Interoperability is a crucial part of healthcare and continues to become more so as data volume grows and healthcare becomes more global and interconnected, said Tachinardi of Regenstrief Institute. Additionally, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of being able to exchange data understandably, accurately, securely and quickly, he added.

"Since 1994, Regenstrief Institute has been home to LOINC, a system of universal terms created at Regenstrief to uniformly identify laboratory test results and health observations," he noted. "This standard allows information to be seamlessly exchanged and understood across systems.

"The system is used in nearly every country in the world, demonstrating the value of exchanging information," he continued. "LOINC joined an international council of standards organizations that work together to facilitate global interoperability moving forward."

Regenstrief Institute will continue to dedicate time and resources to OpenHIE, a community that provides strategic guidance and other supporting resources to low- and middle-income countries for developing interoperability plans in resource-constrained areas. The institute expects this work to grow, improving healthcare in settings where deploying sustainable health information exchange is challenging.

"Institute research scientists also are investing significant resources to develop and disseminate innovative solutions to improve patient matching," Tachinardi said. "The ability to accurately integrate patients' healthcare records from different providers and electronic medical record systems will improve patient care and safety."

The EHR is the foundation

Within healthcare, interoperability has many definitions, and at times, has become akin to a four-letter word within the industry, said Restuccia of Penn Medicine.

"At Penn Medicine, we view interoperability as the ability to appropriately share data internally and externally among differing systems, networks, facilities and so on," he explained. "For us, the foundation that makes the required level of interoperability possible is our common, integrated electronic health record. With this foundation in place, sharing and transmitting data becomes a more straightforward effort.

"Our interoperability capabilities are driven by a solid data foundation based upon system integration," he continued. "The belief that one common integrated system across all care settings serves to not only enable patient care and clinician satisfaction, but also facilitates the ability to seamlessly share data across multiple settings."

Many areas of investment

OhioHealth has invested heavily in interoperability over the years.

"A good bit of interoperability is required by the 21st Century Cures Act and federal interoperability programs; these are the table stakes," Kramer said. "Despite the regulation and incentives, organizations have not reliably connected or fully implemented.

"For example, many have yet to ingest or publish secure direct messaging addresses to the National Provider and Payer Enumeration, to be required by CMS in January," he continued. "We see direct benefits of interoperability such as reducing administrative burden like faxing, improving population health and, of course, improved care."

In addition to interoperability to benefit clinical care, payer interoperability will help providers understand costs, utilization and populations, he added.

"These all have been major areas of investment in our interoperability plan," Kramer said. "A final area of interoperability may be at the community level with data and community organizations. How can aggregated and integrated EHR data improve community health needs?

"This is unexplored territory worthy of investment," he noted. "We are hoping that implementing Epic COSMOS across the state of Ohio, including at OhioHealth, might drive a greater view of the needs of our community."

Interoperability improves the experience for all

South Shore Health plans to continue to make investments in interoperability because making systems as seamless and complete as possible improves the health experience for all, Babachicos said.

"Interoperability is sharing the right information at the right time, and it is the true promise of digital transformation," she stated. "If an organization outsources care or consults with another party for some of the care, it's not okay to have that care documented outside of the primary electronic health record because it wasn't considered as part of the deal or because it's inconvenient.

"From the provider perspective, they want to see the care documented in one place, and from the patient perspective, they want a comprehensive record of their care."

Additionally, South Shore Health wants to make the use of its systems convenient for its caregivers, whether that's through features such as single-sign-on, contextual linking, or any other tactic that will help to reduce the number of passwords and the login time while at the same time secure interoperability and lower cybersecurity risk, she said.

"In the call center world, we also plan to see more of an emphasis on interoperability as we enhance the user experience through lower call wait times and more options for self-service," Babachicos said.

"Through the use of CRM systems, pop screens and smarter call technology, we plan to increase customer satisfaction by routing calls and services more efficiently or by directing calls to more options to obtain answers to questions."

Significant funding

Sanford Health will continue to invest significant resources in interoperability over the next five years.

"We currently are partnering with industry-leading vendors to integrate technology that provides timely access to healthcare information, reduces the administrative burden on our providers, and allows our care teams to focus on what's most important - patient care," said Hocks of Sanford Health. "We will continue to look at investments that offer our providers better access to real-time data during a clinic or hospital visit to support collaborative clinical decision making."
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer:bsiwicki@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.

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Interoperability: Where it's headed, and where IT leaders will be investing

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Interoperability is one of the most complex and challenging imperatives for healthcare. But it's a matter healthcare chief information officers and other health IT leaders must tackle. A good way of understanding interoperability and how to solve it is by looking at where healthcare-provider organizations will be making interoperability investments in the future.

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Objectives
-Describe the components to transform data into wisdom
-Differentiate the relationship between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom

Lecture Notes important

Transforming data, information, knowledge, and wisdom

DIKW framework to turn data into wisdom.

Data —> information —> knowledge —> wisdom

Remember the example in the lecture regarding 86

86 is just a data point, with the context we get information. For example, it is 86 degrees in Maine at 2 pm. We then use the knowledge we have to transform this into something that can be integrated and applied. The wisdom, we then go to the beach. With increased context, the understanding of the data point increases.

EHR —> What do you do with the data?

How can the context be applied to be utilized? How can you transform this into knowledge and wisdom?

Nelson continuum —> data, information, knowledge, and wisdom is not static

ICD-10 code

Application of data into wisdom

Life Cycle of Information Systems

System development life cycling

Project planning, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance

SWOT analysis

Key stakeholders

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Developing Understanding using the DIKW Pyramid

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-Not only is data used to improve patient outcomes, but also for healthcare professionals. As everyone knows, charting and documenting can be time consuming and limits the amount of patient care being done. “If its not documented it was not done”, this is something we have all heard. Therefore, there is an important emphasis on documenting, but increasing the amount of documentation that needs to be done can be taxing to healthcare professionals who are already burnt out.

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Why voice recognition is the new competitive battleground in healthcare’s digital transformation

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As ambient technologies improve, additional use cases to leverage voice will emerge – that leaves us with the question of how patients and physicians are responding to voice-enabled tools in their healthcare encounters.

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“By computerizing health records, we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs and improve care” - State of the Union Address 2004

Meaningful Use: The importance of government-certified EHR to promote data sharing and dissemination

-Stages 1: Data capture and sharing
-Stage 2: Advance clinical processes
-Stage 3: Improved outcomes

Stage 2 had various objectives that providers must achieve before they are able to get reimbursement

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The meaningful use objectives are so important to improve data exchange. However, the video we watched in the course content was so important. As the government increases the number of objectives to promote data exchange to increase patient safety, small practices can be left behind. I am fortunate to work at a large hospital with roles dedicated to various team members. For example, there are case managers who play an important role in facility referrals and are involved in the role of transition of care. But what about the small hospitals who only have 1 case manager or none at all to complete these tasks. It's so interesting to see the differences in various practice settings. It makes so much more sense now understanding why technology is ever changing in my own practice. At the same time, the increased technology plays a large role in practice, but what about the use of technology in the elderly population? I feel like it's so important to assess the entire population.

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Clinical Decision Support

Process for enhancing health related decisions and actions. The goal is to improve health and healthcare delivery

Examples

MAR ==> Drug interactions, drug allergies, dose ranges

Order sets

Alerts

Why is important??

Quality

Safety

Close

Documentation

Communication

Electronic health records

Electronic health records vs electronic medical records

Medical records = institution specific

EHR = lifetime and patient can interact with it

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Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT

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Updated: Health IT for You: Giving You Access to Your Medical Records When and Where They're Needed

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Are you hearing that your health and medical records may become available online? Have you heard your doctor talk about electronic health records (EHRs), but aren't sure what that means for you? This is all part of health IT.

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The use of electronic health records are so important to promote continuity of care. At Yale New Haven Hospital we always get patients as transfers from other hospitals for higher level of care. Access to medical records are especially important now for access to medication records. A lot of times, the elderly population do not remember the millions of pills they take so it’s important to review the charts when they get to the hospital to ensure that there aren’t any drug-drug interactions.

Clinical decision support is so important in ensuring safe care for patients. Especially with short staffing and high patient loads we are working on autopilot. We go to the Pyxis and grab the medication and then go straight to the patients room. The scanning systems helps to ensure that patients are getting the right medications that are ordered for them. Without the scanning system and clinical decision support there is a higher risk for medication error. This is especially important in the emergency room. You can have 3 patients receiving the same medications for the same problem, but in different doses. I remember one day I was working, almost every single patient had presented with chest pain and tachycardia in the 120’s.

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In this video, this nurse describes a medication administration error she made. She accidentally drew up double the dose of a BP medication and noticed the patients blood pressure plummeting. This just shows how important the MAR is on verifying that you read your dose of the medication and check what dose you are giving.

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Nurse Gwen Cox Learns from Her Patient Safety Mistake

# data[].attributes.body
Data = raw numbers collected and stored

Data sets = major nit of data storage and retrieval consisting of collection of data in prescribed arrangement or format

Have documentation like owners manual

Good documentation will include…

Data documentation

Two levels of terminology - metadata vs ontologies

Metadata = set of data that describes and gives information about other data

Ontologies = set of concepts and categories in a subject are or domain tat shows their properties and relations between them

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Datasets are very important in organizing data collected. When someone is doing research there is so much data that is being collected. Datasets help in data storage and retrieval. We cant use the raw data is there is no way to store and retrieve in the future. In the course materials, I chose a dataset related to the number of licensed nurses in the US in a given year. The data sets were in 10 year increments, by allowing for storage and retrieval of data, this data can be used to compare to past and future information. For example, nursing shortages can be predicted based on trends from the last 10 years and policies and interventions can be made to address this issue.

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Definitions

Telemedicine = electronic communication of medical information

Telehealth = remote health care

Services provided by telemedicine

Primary care

Specialist

Remote patient monitoring

Monitoring CHF

Consumer medical and health information

Medical education

Global health informatics

Europe

European patients open smart services (epSOS): Hilda and evaluate cross border interoperability

European federation for medical informatics (EFMI) 30 different countries, 16 working groups

Asia

Pan American Health organization

International organizations

eHealth initiatives

WHO

Global health coalition

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Telehealth and telemedicine has become a tool that makes it so much easier for patients to get in contact with their providers. Especially during the pandemic, various outpatient practices were closed. This meant that people with chronic conditions such as CHF, diabetes, COPD etc were not able to see their doctors to monitor their health status. On top of that, people with mental health issues were not able to reach their psychiatrists and therapists. Not being able to have that support person and being trapped at home can exacerbate psychological issues. The rise of telehealth allowed individuals access to their provider without having to physically go into the office, this helped to increase access to care.

Another thing that I thought was very interesting with telehealth was during the beginning of covid people had the opportunity to screen themselves with a nurse prior to going to the hospital or outpatient provider. Especially during the height of the pandemic hospitals were being slammed and overcrowded, access to telehealth kind of helped to screen patients. Of course if people start feeling anything out of the ordinary they would get scared and try to go to the emergency room, but during the height of it there were really sick patients and an addition of someone who could have just stayed home to be monitored made patient care harder. So telehealth really helped in that sense.

Finally, I never really thought about informatics in terms of global health until reading about it and it would be helpful. A lot of people, myself included probably has family overseas. I have grandparents and relatives who are over who live in China. When my grandfather got sick, no one really knew what he had and it was translated to me in Chinese so it was hard for me to explain to my parents too. If i had the access to his charts I think that may have helped in trying to explain to my parents. Global informatics is not something we really think about, but I do recognize that it would be very helpful.

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Gamification

Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non game context to engage users to think and solve problems

Games

Second Life

Online virtual world owned by San Francisco based firm Linden Lab

Build a healthy plate

Nanobot's revenge

Sea Heroquest

Dementia research

Games and research

Volunteer science: social and behavioral research

Accelerates research by involving more people, lower costs, reduce data collection time and promotes citizen engagement

Apps

Mango health

QuitSTART

Zombies, Run!

Wearables

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I think this was so interesting to learn about how games can be used to impact research. Ive always been the type of person to hate people who plays video games as it was also so time consuming and people would be so absorbed into the game to make time for other things in reality.

After playing some of the games for research such as Nanobots revenge and Sea Heroquest I realized how games can make an impact on not only those affected by a disease, but also for the purpose of data collection.

Lack of physical activity and obesity is a big issue in America and around the world. Kids are not engaging in outside activities as much as before. Games can definitely be used as an educational resource to promote kids to engage in physical activity. The use of wearables such as VR can help to improve activity. Things such as Wii fit has become widely popular in the last few years and it can help people who are afraid of the gym or afraid to be in public work out.

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I thought this article was pretty interesting as gamification is used in a lot of things. As i was researching I saw how it is used in companies to retain employees, reward based activities and challenges for the employees to become “family” and more engaged with each other.

This specific article talks about how gamification is used in conjunction with wearable technology. Individuals who suffered a musculoskeletal injury will utilize this technology in the recovery phase. In order to pass a level and get rewards, individuals must move their extremities the “correct” way. This helps to improve posture and promote rehabilitation.

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IT World Canada - Information Technology news on products, services and issues for CIOs, IT managers and network admins

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Tenzr Health, which launched in 2021, uses wearable sensors, gamification, and healthcare expertise to help the rehabilitation process for patients recovering from musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries.

MSK injuries are any injury that affects the bones, muscles, ligaments, nerves or tendons and result in pain. Golfer's elbow and tennis elbow are both examples of MSK injuries and can often be difficult to recover from.

"The reason you sustained the injury is because of an incorrect movement pattern. And so in many ways, what rehabilitation entails is to rewire your movement pattern so you're moving in a way that's not injurious," said Gautam Sadarangani, co-founder of Tenzr Health. "It's difficult to recover from because it often involves doing a large variety of exercises, making sure you do them correctly, and making sure that you do them often enough."

Tenzr Health co-founder Gautam Sadarangani. Source: Tenzr Health

An engaging experience

To help patients recover from these injuries, Tenzr's movement-tracking software and wearable wrist and knuckle sensors help professionals accurately assess movement impairments while providing patients with visual feedback on exercises to improve the quality of movement.

The wearables also pair with an app which effectively turns a patient's hand and wrist into a video game controller, and rehabilitation exercises into games.

"So instead of having to do an exercise, you can fly a plane on the app. The only way to get through the obstacles is to move your limbs in exactly the position that your therapist wants you to go. So we've taken something that could be quite opaque and difficult to comply with and made it simple to comply with so patients know whether they're doing it correctly," Sadarangani said.

Seeing progress

In addition, the app stores data and allows patients and physiotherapists to track progress.

"We've also provided assessment features so patients know where they are in their recovery journey. And for therapists, they know exactly what the patient's done at home and when they need to progress the patient at the next session. We're essentially giving data and confidence to both the therapist and the patient," he said.

Maureen Dwight, Clinic Director of the Orthopaedic Therapy Clinic in Toronto, has been using Tenzr's wearables at the clinic.

Dwight said she liked the product for its accuracy and its ability to measure dexterity and coordination.

"Hands are about strength and flexibility but hands are also about dexterity and coordination. It's one of the things I like about this [Tenzr wearables]. You can get a little bit more into that dexterity and coordination measure that is harder to quantify through our more traditional means," she said.

Tenzr Health wearables and app. Source: Tenzr Health

When it comes to motivating patients, Dwight said Tenzr's products have been extremely helpful. She said some of her clients felt that they hadn't seen progress with the sensors and games until they looked at the data that the wearables tracked on the app.

"We have one client who was very diligent, she did it twice a day, but only for about 10 minutes. And at the end of the month, she said, 'I think I should take the [wearable] back. It's not working for me.' We looked at the data and the data showed it was [working]. So, she's taken that now for another couple months because she's motivated to do it," Dwight said.

Often patients are unable to truly feel progress, so being able to see the data can be a real benefit.

"Tenzr in the clinic itself is beneficial, because we're able to assess things that one wouldn't be able to assess without sensors," Sadarangani said.

The future of wearable tech in healthcare

When it comes to the expansion of wearable technology in physiotherapy and other healthcare services, Dwight said it would be useful as long as it actually provides accurate data and information.

"As long as wearable technology is relatively accurate, it's a real boon," she said.

For example, nowadays walking data is very easy to track through a smartphone or smartwatch. Dwight said her patients often come in with this walking data, and because it is relatively accurate, she is able to check their data and see if their walking or lack of walking could be causing any injuries or pain.

"I had one client increase their walking from 3,000 steps a day to 12,000. And they came in with an acute hip and their trackable data showed me exactly what it was. It just was too big of a change. [The data] gives you another layer of something that you can't necessarily see," she said.

Tenzr Health is currently operating in British Columbia and Ontario clinics, with plans to expand to the rest of the country as well as into the United States.

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Tenzr Health launching wearable technology in Ontario physiotherapy clinics | IT World Canada News

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A British Columbia based company is rolling out its wearable health technology to physiotherapy clinics in Ontario. Tenzr Health, which launched in 2021, uses wearable sensors, gamification, and healthcare expertise to help the rehabilitation process for patients recovering from musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries.

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EHRS: Are they where they need to be?

Error example from a sync

Medication error

What happened???

Overriding alerts

New nurse

Swiss cheese model

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It’s scary to think that it takes a serious safety issue for us to really understand our surroundings. Alarm fatigue is serious, whether that be in the EHR or in the general environment, were human so we cant help but sometimes feel that way.

I remember it took a serious safety event for Yale to change over to using a different type of oxygen tanks where it’ll beep at us until the tank is changed to a full one. A patient with lung cancer was on an oxygen tank, he was being transferred to a different unit from another floor. From the first unit, the nurse had forgot to ensure that the tank was full so the patient had been transferred to another unit with a tank that was less than half full, but then as they arrived at the next unit the nurse did not check to see if the patient had a full tank. They realized later that the patient was in the wrong unit so again, the transporter had to take the patient to another floor. Now there is a delay to changing the tank to a full one. The patient gets to the final destination, they realize the patient is a lung transplant patient so he requires a single room. As they are trying to coordinate and move their patients around, the patient suddenly says “I Can’t breathe”, thats when the nurses notice that. The tank has been empty. This is an example of the Swiss cheese model of error.

The EHR has various alerts and banners. Specifically in the emergency room, we see the sepsis alert all the time. Often times the nurses who are senior staff are already aware the patients are in septic shock so interventions have already been in action, but what happens when the patients blur together and then you forget that this patient has not received the interventions.

Finally, I always wonder how errors hit multiple individuals before they get to the nurses. The providers have to order  the medication, medication gets verified by the pharmacists and then it gets to the nurses. I work in a large teaching hospital so its filled with medical students and residents, there’s been times where the nurses have to question these providers to make sure that this is the medication that we needed to give.

Patient with rapid Afib

Received multiple IV metoprolol

Ordered another dose amiodarone

BP in 60s, patient placed on levo

Why did this happen???

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Driving forces for privacy

HIPAA

Safeguards in place to ensure data is not compromised and that is only used for intended purposes

Should not impede patient care

Security

Authentication: Who you are

Passwords

Pros and cons: What if you forget your password

Epic and multiple password changes

Authorization: Policy

Accountability: Responsible for what you see and do

Breaches and attack

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I thought this was a really interesting article. At the beginning of the pandemic everyone was given a paper covid vaccine card. This is something that can be easily regenerated and sold, there was a lot of people in the black market who was selling fake cards and how can you really identify this is fake. I think its so interesting that electronic passes haven’t been made yet especially in this technology advanced world, but at the same time I understand because of all the concerns with security and privacy as a lot of information could be exposed if there was a breach.

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Key Takeaways

Although the U.S. government has not issued a federal digital COVID-19 vaccine pass, a verifiable digital proof of vaccination has emerged anyway and slowly gained momentum over the past few months.

More than 20 states-including Connecticut, Nevada, Hawaii -are now using SMART Health Cards, a technology that allows individuals to store or print their health information as QR codes.

The SMART Health Card was developed by the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), a global coalition of health and technology companies including Microsoft, Apple, and the Mayo Clinic. With this system, businesses and institutions can easily verify the authenticity of a health record, like an individual's vaccination status.

The convenience and authenticity of this technology are beneficial, experts said, and we might continue to use it in the future.

What Do SMART Health Cards Contain?

SMART Health Cards do not contain your address, contact number, government-issued identifier, or other health information. Only the following details are included:

Legal name

Date of birth

Clinical information

Date, manufacturer, and the result of test/s

Type, data, and location of vaccination/s

"A SMART Health Card can be used to share health information, such as vaccine status," Matthew Farrelly, PhD, center director for RTI's Center for Health Analytics, Media, and Policy, told Verywell. "Your information is communicated via a QR code that can be read by organizations that are participating in the SMART Health Card system."

SMART Health Cards are recognized by various organizations, businesses, schools, and airlines in the U.S. and in several other countries as well. You can present it and have it scanned by a compatible verifier application at places that require proof of vaccination. You may also be asked to present other forms of identification, such as a driver's license, to prove your identity.

What This Means For You

Why Opt for the SMART Health Card?

The SMART Health Card can be issued by healthcare providers, pharmacies like Walgreens or CVS, or state health authorities. They cannot be faked nearly as easily as paper vaccination cards, experts said. Afterward, you have the freedom to save it on your smartphone's photo album, view it with a PDF viewer application, or print it.

"The electronic version carries authenticity that is difficult to match with handwritten, paper cards," Mark Loafman, MD, MPH, family physician at Cook County Health, told Verywell. "A verifiable digital proof of vaccination is more convenient, given how much we all carry and use our phones now."

There have been instances of healthcare staff sharing blank vaccination cards for others to enter false data, but entering false information into the system is a much riskier and traceable step, he added.

"The SMART Health Card allows access to vaccine data that has been entered by a healthcare provider who administered the vaccine," Loafman said. "To make a fake card, a healthcare professional with access would have to enter false data on the individual's behalf, and then that individual could download the false data."

Are SMART Health Cards Secure?

Vaccination records are uploaded to secure state-operated websites in accordance with HIPAA privacy and security regulations. The digital proof of vaccination, which provides patients access to their own vaccination data, is safe and no more vulnerable than any other password-protected information, Loafman said.

Sharing the QR code is similar to presenting your immunization record before enrolling in an educational institution or using your credit card in a store, which means that you should only share it with businesses and organizations that you trust.

"The SMART Health Card mobile app information is protected just as well as all other information on your cell phone based on the strength of your cell phone pass code," Farrelly said. "The information stored on your cell phone may be more secure than a paper vaccine card that has no layer of projection if lost."

Unlike a physical vaccine card, the QR code masks your personal information in case it does get lost, he added.

Will These Be Useful in the Future?

Given that similar systems have been used for years-such as the CLEAR program in airports-the SMART Health Card may grow in popularity over time, Farrelly said.

It also seems ideal to keep using digital proof of vaccination in the future, Loafman said. If vaccine data is routinely uploaded to secure state-operated websites, paper copies of vaccine administration data may eventually be impractical. Digital records have also been helpful when patients and families move between various health plans.

"We now have so much personal information online, and password protection, firewalls, etc. are all part of daily life," Loafman added. "It is time for our critical health data to catch up. Security concerns with electronic health records are legitimate, just as these concerns are with other online shopping, banking, email info, and social media. We have learned to navigate these critical data areas very well, and we can do the same for health data."

The information in this article is current as of the date listed, which means newer information may be available when you read this. For the most recent updates on COVID-19, visit our coronavirus news page.

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SMART Health Card Let's You Digitally Store COVID Vaccine and Test Records

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Although the U.S. government has not issued a federal digital COVID-19 vaccine pass, a verifiable digital proof of vaccination has emerged anyway and slowly gained momentum over the past few months. More than 20 states-including Connecticut, Nevada, Hawaii -are now using SMART Health Cards, a technology that allows individuals to store or print their health information as QR codes.

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A Taste of Data Analytics

Machine learning --> build systems and algorithms that learn from data

Definitions

Data mining

Text mining

Big data

Levels of analytics

descriptive

predictive

prescriptive

Steps to basic analysis of data

ask a burning question

find data

potential sources

preliminary data visualization

examine

clean data

visualize data in detail

draw conclusions

disseminate findings

turning data into knowledge

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This video demonstrated an example of giving presentations through story telling versus just reading off of something. A lot of times when you're presenting data it can be boring. To make it more engaging its important to add videos, stories and even just changing your tone when speaking can

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Data Visualization

What is it?

Understand the significance of data by including visual context

Helps to recognize patterns, trends, and correlations

Storytelling with data

Key Questions

Exploratory vs Explanatory

Exploratory: What you do to understand data

Explanatory: What you want to explain

Audience

Who

What

Types

Charts

Infographics

A visual image such as a chart or diagram is used to represent information or data

A tool used to educate and inform

Helps to bring awareness

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This was a very interesting collection I found. The first infographic on the history of pandemics really caught my eye. Data can be boring. To me, unless I am interested in something i won't really go read up on it. But things like infographics are short, quick and easy.

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Data is beautiful - it can inspire, improve lives and bring out the best in people. To keep you inspired, we've gathered the best data visualizations of 2023.

The chosen works cover a variety of topics from Covid-19 healthcare to environmental issue statistics and futuristic LIDAR data graphs.

With over 4.54 billion people using the Internet in 2020, we're sure to witness even more amazing data visualizations next year. For now, get ready to dive into 2023's best data visualizations.. Enjoy your flight of imagination!

But first, check out other top data visualizations in our previous collections from and .

Quick Read

NASA's Eyes on Asteroids is a good data visualization example that provides a great user experience. The design is simple and intuitive, making it easy for users to navigate the site and find what they're looking for.

The History of Pandemics is an infographic that presents a visual timeline of every known pandemic and includes information on how many people were affected, where it spread and what caused it.

Void of the Memories is the rarest data visualization on this list. It's a great combination of calligraphy and data visualization that tells the story of human memory and experience.

The search for dark matter is one of the most important scientific questions in physics today, and this infographic, "The Search for Dark Matter," serves as a great introduction to the subject.

Enhance your data storytelling skills and creatively showcase your data by signing up for Visme's data visualization tools.

1 Nasa's Eyes on Asteroids

If you are interested in exploring data visualization topics in space exploration, check out this striking data visualization created by NASA.

NASA's Eyes on Asteroids is one of the best data visualizations due to its exceptional design and functionality. This interactive visualization allows users to explore the asteroid belt and see the real-time positions of asteroids in our solar system.

The design of this visualization is highly engaging and visually stunning, with a sleek and modern interface that is easy to use. The visualization features a 3D solar system model, allowing users to zoom in and out to explore asteroids and other celestial bodies.

One of the key features of NASA's Eyes on Asteroids visualization is its real-time data feed, which provides up-to-date information on the positions and trajectories of asteroids. This feature makes the visualization highly informative and relevant to current events, allowing users to track potentially hazardous asteroids and see their projected paths over time.

2 Selfiecity - The Science of Selfies

Selfiecity is an innovative and engaging data visualization project exploring the selfies world. It uses a variety of visualizations to analyze selfies from five cities around the world.

They collected over 120,000 selfies from the five cities and selected nearly 1,000 photos from each town. After collecting the images, they analyzed various metrics such as demographics, poses, moods and features.

The project then revealed exciting insights into the culture and social behavior of the people who take selfies. For example, the project shows that women take more selfies than men and that people tend to take selfies in public places rather than private spaces.

The study was quite complex and yielded valuable insights, which presented a challenge when it came to sharing the results. However, the team did an excellent job creating visually appealing data visualizations to present the information.

3 The Ancient Seven Wonders of the World

The civil engineering feats of humankind have reached the highest peaks of the mountains and deep into the ocean, and we have built pyramids, temples and statues that are still standing today.

The seven wonders of the ancient world are a collection of man-made structures that are considered to be remarkable feats at the time they were built.

Pranav Gavali, a Data Scientist, created this graphic using data from Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia to visualize the world's seven ancient wonders along with their features and modern-day locations.

The graphic perfectly illustrates how the seven wonders were built and why they are considered a wonder of the world. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the seven wonders that still stands today.

4 The World's Population at 8 Billion

On November 15, 2022, the world's population reached 8 billion. This is the first time in history that there have been this many people on Earth. And there can't be a more straightforward and visually appealing way to present this data than this visualization.

What makes this big data visualization stand out is its simplicity and effectiveness in conveying the message. Using a circle to represent the earth is a powerful symbol that makes the visualization easy to understand and remember.

By using colors to represent continents and lines to separate countries, the visualization effectively conveys the complexity of the world's population in a simple and visually appealing way.

5 The Top 10 Largest Nuclear Explosions

This is a prime example of how creative design can bring data to life. It uses a unique approach, similar to an infographic, to showcase the impact and size of the largest nuclear explosions ever detonated.

It features a series of explosion image examples that help visualize each explosion's scale and impact. The use of images effectively conveys the destructive power of each blast in a way that is easy to understand and remember.

The data is presented clearly and concisely, with each explosion listed along with its country of origin.

6 Visualizing the History of Pandemics

This is an informative graphic named Visualizing the History of Pandemics by Nicholas LePan. It tells the story of all the known pandemics in the history of mankind, including the name of the disease, death toll and the approximate date the pandemic occurred.

While the exact number of victims of every disease is still under question, we can still learn from this graphic that super-spreading infections happened across all history of mankind. Statistical data of this infographic shows some diseases scaling with the growth of the population.

Striking 3D illustrations of diseases are combined with the research data from CDC, WHO, BBC, Wikipedia, Historical records, Encyclopedia Britannica and John Hopkins University. The illustrations scale according to the recorded death toll to allow scanning and recognizing data easily.

7 It Fell From the Sky

Created by a UK-based designer, this infographic highlights beautiful data visualization of 34,000 meteorites that have fallen on the Earth. You will discover the map and timeline of the impacts per year, wrapped up in clean, stylish graphics. The visualization also shows spikes on the records and comparing the size of the biggest meteorites recorded.

Meteorites hit almost all of Earth's surface, but some areas seem untouched; this phenomenon could be connected with Earth's magnetic fields. And who knows - the future may bring us even more meteorites to explore!

If you're a fan of space and astronomy, you can learn more about meteorites from NASA website or check out this of the Meteoritical Society. You can use our data visualization tool to create new stunning visualizations on meteorites and space - here for free.

8 Mars Mission 2024 Promo Reel

Vivid, rich in details. This 3D graphic uses beautiful data visualizations to share the vision of the future. Space missions and sending people into space are shown in an eye-catching red-grey palette.

The complicated animation of terrain exploration, space module flight and surface graphics are breathtaking. For a moment, you feel like a Mars mission crew member with your eyes on the stars.

9 Void of the Memories

These mesmerizing circles were brought to you by one of the best-in-class street art and calligraphy authors, Pokras Lampas. Whether you would like to decipher this canvas or refer to it as a pure visual object, the unique gothic Calligrafuturism style is an eye magnet for anyone.

The project is focused on the human consciousness and the theme of dreams in the context of human memory and experience. According to the author, the future is for global unity and harmony of cultures - and it's visible in the fusion of styles, techniques and systems used in the project graphics.

10 Plastic Waste Pollution

Based on data on the distribution of total plastic waste generation by continent, Jamie Kettle created this personal project to estimate the percentage of the plastic waste that was inadequately disposed of.

The infographic provides a clear and precise picture on current surface plastic mass by ocean, measuring it in a creative way. We can see plastic waste management for every country in a colored bar chart. The names of the countries that report 100% of all their plastic waste handled properly are highlighted in bold.

One of the major findings here is that the GDP of the country and efficient plastic waste management aren't always correlated - you can see it by irregular patterns shown in the infographic.

If you are curious about plastic waste, here are some resources for you: a on plastic waste, detailed info on the plastic waste pollution from the UN Environment Program and Impacts of Mismanaged Trash by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

11 Fossil Fuels

This profound and complex visualization tells us about one of the most pressing environmental issues - the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.

While CO 2 buildup is responsible for climate change, the trend is projected to continue, and the infographic provides insight into when this could happen. It's easy to notice a steady increase in fossil fuel emissions since the Industrial Revolution and the projected sharp rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide until 2100.

12 Price of a Pandemic: Poverty Spreads Around the Globe

In this classic data visualization by National Geographic, data is placed against the dark background for better contrast and readability. Simple, comprehensive charts show us the effect of the pandemic on the income of people in various countries.

The authors distributed three levels of income range for countries with low and middle class income to provide a clear picture of the current situation. Core findings of the report were that the pandemic pushed a tremendous amount of people to extreme poverty - projected data is 100 million of people living on $1.90 per person/day.

Based on the World Bank data, the infographic provides a wide view of the exact factors influencing people's wellbeing - from travel restrictions and job loss to wars, displacements and higher food costs. Highlights at the beginning reveal rapid shrinking of income in examined countries across all continents on a mass scale.

13 Water Consumption

Hidden food production costs involve a great amount of freshwater. This stunning example of visualization created by Chesca Kirkland unfolds a story of water consumption required to produce certain kinds of food.

From chocolate to cheese, coffee and beer, every product requires a certain amount of freshwater to grow or be produced. The second part of the infographic is centered on the water resources available, including the map of the water footprint per capita per year and general availability of clean water to people.

Nominated for two C-Change Environmental and Sustainability Awards, the project won First Class Honours in Final Design Futures. Raising awareness about water sustainability is vital as we move forward to a more intelligent, AI-driven future.

We at Visme are inviting you to take up the challenge and create informative infographics that can invite change to various industry branches. Use our amazing free infographic library to create graphics for your personal projects as well as corporate or brand presentations.

For more detailed info on the infographic creation, watch this video on the 13 major types of infographics.

14 Icebergs and Climate Change

Dedicated to "travel adventures" of this 4,200-square-kilometer iceberg, this infographic alerts people to climate change. A giant chunk of ice the length of Puerto Rico broke off the Antarctic peninsula coast to wander into the wild - and dangerously close to the South Georgia Island, packed with wildlife.

The graphic compares the size of the berg with 66 countries or territories, and cites that the ice mass is so large that it cannot be captured in one photograph. Besides, we can also see impressive geodata on the wildlife from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species inhabiting the endangered South Georgia Island.

15 Cell Towers Map of the World

This stunning, elegant and creative visualization of 40 million cell towers is surely an unforgettable view. Based on OpenCelliD, the world's largest open database of cell towers, this interactive map is so far one of the most precise publicly available data sources for telecom-related projects.

We can see how the cell tower network lights up Europe and other big cities of the world; simultaneously, vast areas of "wilderness" are still present on the map. Harsh climate and low population density in the northern regions of Russia and Canada, along with central areas of Africa and Mongolia result in low quantity of cell towers in these areas.

Closeup view of this cell tower map resembles the brain structure. Similar to the neurons, axons and dendrites that create the communication network of the human body - cell towers keep humanity connected.

16 Active Satellites in Space

Created for Scientific American, this colorful and bright data visualization displays satellites in an original way. Neat and stylish satellite cluster grids sort them by country, orbit and class - business/commercial, civil, amateur/academic or defense.

The graphic details the mass of the satellites (100 kgs - 5,000 kgs), category (Test and Training, Communications, Images, Surveillance and Meteorology, Navigation and Research) and the launch date, from Nov 1974 till Aug 2020.

According to the graphic, six countries of the world control the largest amount of the satellites in orbit, and the US owns the largest share so far.

17 Covid Vaccination Tracker

Updated daily, this animated Covid vaccination tracker shows the percentage of people in the world given at least one dose. The infographic and data illustration displays data on the vaccination rollout plan in over 80 countries and 50 US states.

Data presented in this data visualization is sourced from the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Uncluttered, simple graphs show the 7-day Covid vaccination rolling average as well. Interactive charts allow you to sort the percent of population given at least one dose by country or income.

At the bottom of the page we can see the detailed, in-depth Covid-19 vaccination statistics, with type of vaccines offered (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Sinopharm, CanSino, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Covishield, Sputnik V, etc.) and vaccination priority groups for various countries separately.

18 Blindsight

It took 4 years to create this non-commercial self-funded project. Based on the eponymous sci-fi novel by Peter Watts, this visualization row includes breathtaking renders of the solar system, four-dimensional objects as a system of data visualization and manipulation, spacesuit interface renders, cryo capsule graphics and nonhuman species concepts.

The visualization received over a dozen awards and nominations such as Best VFX Screen Power Film Festival 2020, Outstanding Achievement Award (Sci-fi Short) Indie Short Fest LA 2020, Winner Best Sound & Music Fantasy/Sci-fi film Festival 2021, Award Winner Flickfair 2020, Official selection Miami International Sci-fi Film Festival 2021 and so on.

Space mysteries have always tempted mankind. With the outstanding talent of the team behind the project, we hope to enjoy the related movie one day.

19 Gravitational Waves

Introducing to you another captivating space-themed project - the interactive visualization of gravitational wave events. Created for Science News, this space-time ripples design is amazingly minimalistic, slick and informative.

This enchanting spirals animation is saturated with the useful data about the black hole mergers, or cosmic smashups. You can learn about the original and final mass of the mergers, total merger size and other details of gravitational wave events.

20 Map of the Lighthouses of Ireland

Updated my map of the lighthouses of Ireland from the #30DayMapChallenge - now with the correct timings/flash patterns etc. Thanks to @IrishLights for providing additional information pic.twitter.com/eLlicP8fw5

- Neil Southall (@neilcfd1) December 8, 2020

This great animation was created as a part of 30 Day Map Challenge and it depicts all lighthouses in Ireland according to their timing and flash patterns. Here, the author visualizes data from the IrishLights - the maritime organization delivering the safety service around the coast of Ireland.

Aside from being a vital part of the water safety of coastal waterways, lighthouses are a symbol of hope and undying light even through the toughest circumstances. That's one of the reasons why this minimalistic graphic is so appealing.

21 Together [Hierarchical Positions of Employees in a Corporation]

Good data visualizations are essential for conveying complex information in an easily understandable way. Look at this creative way of displaying the hierarchical organization structure in a large corporation with a presence in over 100 countries. This creative data visualization example looks fun and a bit otherworldly, with muffled but contrasting colors.

Linking C-level executives to their subordinates in every branch revealed an intricate and complex corporation structure. It's suggested that in most cases, flat patterns would fail to represent company structures correctly because of the flexibility of human relations.

22 The Search for Dark Matter

The search for the ever elusive and intriguing dark matter continues. The problem isn't likely to get solved any time soon - but here is a striking infographic for you to follow the lead.

Quanta Magazine created this interesting data visualization to represent the types of particles that dark matter could be made of. Axions, WIMPs, ultralight dark matter or primordial black holes - any of these could be a star candidate.

Distributing every particle type along the scale according to their mass, the visualization also provides clear, concise descriptions for every type. Additionally, you can dive into the experiments' data. Are you the one to solve the new puzzle in particle physics?

23 2020 Autonomous Vehicle Technology Report

Concise and lean, this comprehensive report draws focus to autonomous vehicle technology and provides an insight into the hardware & software market for self-driving vehicles.

The report starts from the visualization explaining levels of autonomous vehicle capabilities in context of the environment. We learn that the greatest challenge for Google (Waymo), Uber and other companies building self-driving vehicles is to enable the vehicle to adjust to all driving scenarios.

Sensory technology is an essential part of autonomous vehicles, and they're designed to build an environment map and localize themselves inside that map at the same time. This requires huge computational technologies - maps created by AI systems and humans are of great help here.

Further in the report, we see the visualization of the electromagnetic spectrum and its usage for perception sensors, graphics of the time-of-flight (ToF) principle of environment sensing and various object detection sensor types such as radars, cameras, LIDARs, MEMS, etc. The next visualization covers different sets of sensors used for autonomy by Tesla, Volvo-Uber and Waymo.

Short, clean-cut schemes of the AI architecture of autonomous vehicles, the computation/decision making environment of an autonomous vehicle and the concept of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication complete the report.

24 The U.S. Election Twitter Network Graph Tool

These cutting edge visuals from the U.S. Election Twitter Network Graph Tool enables a viewer to analyze social media interactions that define the online political landscape. In this case, we're tracking the influence and connections between various political figures.

It's clearly visible which accounts the target account is most likely to mention or reply to. The network graphs clearly show the potential of certain accounts to generate new connections and influence their followers.

You can search for specific nodes in the interactive map. All information flow between nodes is reflected in the color of the node edges. Working together with other open-source investigation tools, this graph is meant to increase transparency and help fight misinformation in social networks.

25 Map of a Fly Brain

The high-resolution nervous system map represented in the above graphic is a part of the fruit-fly's brain - yet the complexity and harmony of the structure is astounding.

Millions of connections between 25,000 neurons create a wiring diagram, or connectome, of connections in various parts of a fruit fly's brain.

It's estimated that tracking all neuron connections in the fruit fly's brain manually would need 250 people working for 20 years at least. Google's computational power has helped to speed up this research, and scientists are aiming to create a full fruit fly brain visualization by 2022.

26 Freight Rail Works

Our next interesting visualization highlights the advanced layers of technology Freight Rail Works uses across its infrastructure. Talented Danil Krivoruchko & Aggressive/Loop teams produced a futuristic and dynamic animation of the data-world around a train in motion.

Magnificent waves of data light up outlines of the objects and then vanish in waves as the train moves forward to the smart city. Graphics of the giant city cluster zoom out to reveal the continent routes and the beauty of a simple railway communications network.

In the era of semi-autonomous aircrafts and drones, the simple, down-to-earth railway system looks stable but innovative in this graphic.

27 The Korean Clusters

Korean hospitals and churches experienced a burst of Covid infections among their visitors in January 2020. Having linked connections between the confirmed cases, scientists were able to trace back the first case and build a tree of contacts between the affected people.

Tracking the timeline of the first patient's actions revealed that this person caused thousands of infections. Wandering sick for a few days resulted in over 30 more people infected. Subsequently, the Shincheonji Church cluster with 5,016 infected people accounted for at least 60% of all cases in South Korea at that time.

28 2020's Biggest Tech Mergers and Acquisitions

Despite the fact that for most businesses 2020 was a devastating year with grim outcomes, this data visualization shows that Big Tech experienced a growth boost. It's not surprising that people working remotely increasingly need digital services of all kinds.

The graphic shows the biggest tech mergers and acquisitions closed in 2020, together with the short description of the acquired company, acquiring company, deal amount and deal date. While the chart is visually busy, it's also innovative and visually appealing.

If you need a market report from your industry area, grab the data from Crunchbase and build your own custom branded infographic via our data visualization tool quickly and easily. Sign up free .

29 Stolen Paintings

This wonderful visualization was created for Visual Data, a column on "La Lettura," the cultural supplement of "Corriere Della Sera."

Since 1900 to present day, the infographic reveals the details of 40 stolen paintings. Neutral, minimalistic visuals highlight the painting's artist, the year when the painting was created and the year of theft.

It was shocking to find out that the majority of thefts took place during the last 20 years (2000-2020) - and most of the art works have never been recovered.

30 House Of Cards LIDAR

House of Cards from Brendan Dawes on Vimeo.

Take a look at the last cool data visualization in this list - the rework of Radiohead's House of Cards video. This astonishing art was created on the basis of around one minute of the LIDAR data.

Motion graphics of particles scattered around a person's face create an unforgettable image. The hero of the story in the video is clearly emotional - but we can't tell anymore whether this person is even human.

AI generated data can be beautiful, but how can you take control?

Data Visualization FAQs

What Is the Most Popular Form of Data Visualization?

Bar graphs, bar charts or column charts are the most popular type of data visualization.

Bar charts are best for comparing numerical values across categories using rectangles (or bars) of equal width and variable height. You can use bar charts to compare items between different groups, measure changes over time and identify patterns or trends.

Other popular forms of data visualization include pie charts, line graphs, area charts, histograms, pivot tables, boxplots, scatter plots, radar charts and choropleth maps.

What Are the Benefits of Data Visualization?

Here's how data visualization helps users to make the most of their data.

Data visualizations make data clear, concise and easy to understand. Users can easily unlock key values from massive data sets, interpret them and draw conclusions.

Visualization allows business users to identify relationships, patterns and trends between data, giving it greater meaning. You can easily uncover fresh insights and focus areas that require more attention.

Creative data visualization is about creating compelling narratives through the use of graphics, diagrams and visual analytics. Visualizing data helps users tell better stories and convey messages in an engaging manner.

Data visualization can significantly increase the pace of decision-making processes since it makes it simple for us to understand visual data. It's no surprise, as The Wharton School of Business says that data visualization can cut down on meeting time by up to 24%.

Visualizing data helps quickly spot any errors so they can be removed. If you still doubt the importance of data visualization, this article about 50 data visualization statistics might change your thought process.

What are the Best Practices of Data Visualization?

Below are data visualization best practices to help you present data in an engaging and appealing way.

Specify the audience and their unique needs. Your data visualization should be crafted to communicate, provide real value and meet the needs of the target audience.

Define a Clear Purpose. Specify what questions you want your data visualizations to answer or the problems you want them to solve.

Keep your data clean. Before visualizing your data, make sure to fix or remove incomplete, duplicate, incorrect, corrupted and incorrectly formatted data within your dataset.

Use the right visuals. With so many charts available, identify the best type for presenting the particular data type you're working on.

Keep your data organized. At a glance, your audience should be able to view and digest information quickly.

Use the right color combination.

Read our article to learn more about data visualization best practices

Create Your Own Data Visualizations

If you are feeling inspired by these data visualizations, use our data visualization software to convert disparate data into clean, comprehensive visuals.

Wondering if Visme's data visualization tools are right for you? Take a look at what one of our satisfied customers, Cassandra C. | Owner, has to say:
"I also appreciate the wide range of features, including charts, graphs, and other visuals that can be used to present data in a clear and concise way. Overall, I'm very happy with Visme and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, user-friendly tool to create visuals."
To learn more about creating your own data visualizations, check out our detailed guide on data visualization types and the introduction to data viz on our blog.

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The 30 Best Data Visualizations of 2023 [Examples]

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We've created a list of the 25 best data visualization examples from 2020. Gather inspiration for your next data visualization or infographic.

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Legal and Regulatory Matters

Difference between law and ethics

Ethics: What is good? What is correct? What is desirable?

legal principles derived from ethical ones

Law: How do we behave under different circumstances

punishment exists for breaking the law

Ethical Principles

Autonomy: Self-determination

Equality and Justice

Beneficence: Good for others

Non-Maleficiance: Prevent harm

Impossibility

Integrity: Obligation to fulfill the duty

General principle of informatics ethics

Information privacy and disposition

Openness

Security

Access

Legitimate Infringement

Least Intrusive

Accountability

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The CDC has so much resources on different areas of research. This one in particular was interesting as it showed the obesity percentages of each state. This can then be further classified into different categories such as race/ethnicity, age, gender, education and income levels. The use of visuals to present data helps to give a clearer image. Sometimes it can demonstrate a more dramatic effect as well.

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Example of an ethical dilemma