Tuesday, April 10, 2007

New Learning Spaces: Health Care Embraces Electronic Info + "Bodies...the Exhibit "+ Valparaiso Univ. Lab

While pornography may be the industry to most rapidly adapt new information technologies, the health sciences are often the academic disciplines to do so. If you want to find some examples of innovative integration of technology, physical space, and virtual realities, look into medical education - whether in colleges and universities or hospitals. E.g., visit "Bodies...the Exhibition" when it comes to your city [see below] or see silent slide show (< 2 minutes) about Valparaiso University's Virtual Nursing Learning Center, and read the article excerpt below about Integrating Electronic Medical Records.

VIRTUAL NURSING LEARNING CENTER
This slide show ends by taking your browser to a Web page where you will find more info about this fascinating learning/teaching space, including a longer, full-motion narrated video about it. Click here: http://www.tltgroup.org/TailoredWebsites-gigs/Valpo/VVNLab.htm

BODIES...THE EXHIBITION
"Bodies... the Exhibition" - slightly controversial mix of art and anatomy education - human cadavers extraordinarily preserved, displayed, annotated, and explained. For more info, see: www.bodiestheexhibition.com . I saw a version of this exhibit in Chicago a couple months ago and was astonished, fascinated, educated, and exhausted. I need to go at least once more.

INTEGRATING ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS
"The electronic medical record is the most important single development helping to usher in the Era of No Excuses in modern medicine. It is an age in which clinical decision-making, physician performance and patient outcomes are increasingly transparent; patient safety is mechanized; and the once-secret medical chart is sometimes open to contributions from the patients themselves.

"Electronic medical records make confusing and physically unwieldy masses of data instantly available, portable and searchable -- altogether more useful than when the information was stored on paper. Computer-accessible records have the potential to save the cost-strangled American medical system billions of dollars in waste, repetition and error. They may also prove to be essential tools of research, allowing scientists to examine patterns of medical practice, drug use, complication rates and health outcomes."

Excerpt from: "VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - Computerized Medical Records Promise Lower Costs and Better Treatment," By David Brown, Washington Post, April 10, 2007; p. HE01
VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - washingtonpost.com

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