- This topic has 36 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 10 months ago by
Weerada Trongtranonth.
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2021-09-01 at 10:45 am #30902
Saranath
KeymasterA professional in public health or health informatics (an informatician) requires knowledge and skills from multi-disciplines. According to your background, could you briefly discuss what kinds of knowledge and skills that you would need to gain in order to improve your profession in public health or health informatics.
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2021-09-07 at 7:11 am #31174
Sri Budi Fajariyan
Participantas a public health professional and also informatician. I need a lot of skills such as making data standards, data sets, relationships between data, database management, data analysis, and visualization in the process of building an information system in the field of malaria in Indonesia, besides that, I also have to have basic knowledge of programming languages, database applications, applications data analysis and visualization, cloud computing so that it can determine the platform that will be used in the application
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2021-09-07 at 1:36 pm #31203
TARO KITA
ParticipantPublic health professionals require multidisciplinary knowledge and skills.
I would like to address some of the public health perspectives that should be considered in a context when trying to improve the health situation in remote areas of developing countries where maternal/ infant mortality rates are high.Firstly, the process begins with establishing a surveillance mechanism to capture the health situation in the region including examination and diagnosis, data collection, analysis, and presentation.
If the problem stems from the local culture or religion, it is essential to reach out to the local community to improve the situation by promoting changes, which may require involvement in the school curriculum.
The involvement of government authorities is also important for ensuring sustainability.
The health sectors of central/ local governments are key stakeholders in establishing/ strengthening the health/ medical systems including implementation of antenatal check-up, vaccination, nutritional support and establishing an emergency medical service including ambulance system, as well as maintaining an education, certification and training mechanism for the relevant health professionals.
In conclusion, the public health approach requires a wide range of knowledge and skills not only in the field of health/ medicine, but also sociology, law, politics and economics.
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2021-09-07 at 7:57 pm #31207
Arwin Jerome Manalo Onda
ParticipantBased on my experience working in the public health setting, the following are the essential knowledge and skills a pharmacist should gain/develop to improve the profession in public health or health informatics:
1. Learning is a process – it takes time and effort. When I landed my first job as a pharmacist working as a health researcher in the government, I had the faintest idea of the roles and responsibilities I’ll be undertaking. While I have my own set of expertise gained in school, the job requires far more than that. I wasn’t taught in our undergraduate program on how to systematically search for data, organize data from published sources, and conduct analysis on data sets stemming from various sources and literatures. I had difficulty extracting datasets from databases for reportable information, trouble understanding statistical analyses beyond what were taught in school, epidemiologic principles, and many more.
With perseverance, patience, effort, and showing willingness to learn, I was able to understand and perform my work better and with confidence. Learning doesn’t stop after school. As diseases are rapidly emerging and technology is rapidly evolving, we, as pharmacists, must always be on the constant watch-out for opportunities to learn.
2. In public health, one can’t survive without a team. Communication, sharing of thoughts, and collaboration are crucial in public health work. While a group of experts in the same field are commendable, a group of experts from multidisciplinary fields offer broader wisdom and knowledge, and provide multidimensional analyses of the situation. I, myself, likes to do tasks individually but I couldn’t ignore the countless times I’ve made success due to collaborative process. As drug experts, it is expected from pharmacists in public health to be able to openly communicate and express their ideas to the team. Establishing networks with other experts expand our horizons as practitioners in the field.
3. Communication with stakeholders is important. Stakeholders are the end-users of the data and information gathered. By knowing their priorities and understanding their objectives and desired outcomes, workstreams and milestones can be tailored to facilitate efficient and timely deployment of interventions. Being able to extend our opinions based on expertise on the achievability, implementability, and sustainability of the intervention/project would ultimately result to exponential gains to the people.
4. Always be evidence-based and maintain integrity throughout the process. Malicious information can render the project useless, or worse, have negative impact on the implementation – or as they say, garbage in, garbage out. We, as pharmacists on the field, should always provide recommendations backed by sound scientific evidence. In the age of information, I should always be critical of the data and information I’m going to use for analyses – its source, accuracy, quality, and reliability. Pharmacists are the most accessible healthcare professional; hence, they should always possess factual knowledge on health concerns.
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2021-09-10 at 5:45 am #31242
Saranath
KeymasterYes, communication and team leading is the important skills in public health practices. On the job training is the most useful way to learn. What we learn in the class will only provide you concept and some examples that you can apply to your real work.
Thanks for sharing!
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2021-09-13 at 7:04 pm #31288
Arwin Jerome Manalo Onda
ParticipantTo add, I also agree with the points raised by my classmates. As a health science professional, I would need to understand and familiarize with concepts and fundamentals of information technology, since the role of informaticians is to be the bridge between health policymakers and IT. There are plenty of rooms for learning in the public health setting and IT world, indeed.
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2021-09-07 at 10:06 pm #31209
Auswin Rojanasumapong
ParticipantAccording to my background as a family physician, which usually practices in primary care, the knowledge and skills that I need to gain to improve my profession in health informatics are
Health and biological sciences -> I need to improve my knowledge about other medical fields such as pharmacy, nursing, allied health science in order to work with multidisciplinary teams. Being an informatician needs to deal with other professions that are related to health science and working together can improve the quality of health care overall.
Computer science and statistics -> I need to improve my programming skills and medical statistics to handle the data and conducting researches.
Management skills -> This knowledge domain must be fulfilled since I have little to no experience in organizational theory and business administration. This kind of knowledge is crucial when working with people and running an organization.
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2021-09-10 at 5:51 am #31243
Saranath
KeymasterThank you! You mention about working with multidisciplinary team. Sometimes you don’t really need to have the knowledge regarding those multidisciplines, but you need to understand their working process. Empathy is another important skills when working in team.
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2021-09-08 at 9:32 pm #31233
Karina Dian Lestari
ParticipantAs a statistician who works in public health research, there are many skills and knowledge I need to improve so I can move forward in my career path.
Firstly, I need to improve my understanding of epidemiology and public health. I need to learn about the terminology, what kind of questions are relevant to the particular public of interest, and what kind of data to collect to answer those questions.
Second, I also need to improve my statistical skills. What kind of analysis that usually used in analysing epidemiology data, how to interpret the data correctly, and what kind of visualization tools to use to present the result.
Lastly, I need to learn how to properly communicate the findings so that the research that has been done can be understood. The findings then can be used to support the evidence-based policy to improve general public health.-
2021-09-10 at 5:56 am #31244
Saranath
KeymasterI think one of important skills for statisticians is database and data management skills. The quality and integrity of your analysis output will largely depend on the quality of data input into the analysis. It would be great if you could be able to involve in the data collection, database setup, or data management processes.
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2021-09-09 at 4:06 am #31234
Pisit Saiwangjit
ParticipantIt goes without saying that the informatician is required a certain level of competence in various fields. As a pharmacist, I’m familiar with health science and statistical field. I would like to expand my knowledge about computer science and management skill in order to make me more professional. I’m not quite good at communication so it’s crucial for me to ameliorate my communication skill.
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2021-09-09 at 12:35 pm #31236
Tossapol Prapassaro
ParticipantFirstly, for my background as a specialist physician, I mainly focus on individual treatment rather than disease prevention on public or population level which now I realized that disease prevention and early detection of disease is an essential factor for improvement of the treatment for the patient as well and also for a health system in the country. So what I hope to gain is how to look at the population level, find the etiology, and promote disease prevention. However, if you need to study at community or population level, you have to deal with a lot of data and information which is required to be organized and utilized before using it; therefore, you have to know about computers and IT, which I think that I have a little knowledge about it and this is my week point, so I hope to learn more about its and it’s tools to management and analyses the data. Furthermore, to be complete as a professional informatician, you also need to know about managing and social sciences, which compose many aspects, so I also need to learn more about that.
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2021-09-10 at 6:06 am #31246
Saranath
KeymasterYes, public health or community health is as important as clinical practice. Good public health management would help cut down number of unnecessary patients in the hospital. Healthcare staff can pay more attention to those who really need help. I’m glad to hear that you want to learn more about IT and management skills. These will certainly help you manage the projects effectively.
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2021-09-09 at 3:56 pm #31238
Napisa Freya Sawamiphak
ParticipantPublic health or health informatics is required knowledge and skills from multi-disciplines. According to my background as a pharmacist with some knowledge of epidemiology, I would need to gain intensive skills in computational/mathematical science and management skills the most.
Computational and mathematical science is the discipline I need to improve the most. Programing, IT, computer science and statistics skills are crucial for conducting data analysis, setting up and manage a database.
Management and organization skills are also essential for working as teams, especially at the operation level. To run the workflow and implement the system in the organization smoothly, we need to maximize the skills in people management, organization behavior and project management, and also built a good collaboration within cross-functional teams.
Additionally, I would like to improve my knowledge of public health and other professionals in healthcare, in order to understand the scope of their works and work in a cross-functional team effectively.
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2021-09-10 at 10:10 am #31251
Navin Prasai
ParticipantIn my previous tenure, I worked as a clinician which was focused on an individual for treatment and health promotion. Health informatics focuses on the population, uses Information technology for the proper dissemination of information to the people. It includes various fields like medicine, public health, management, human resources, statistics, information technology, etc. So, I need to upgrade my skills in the different specialties mentioned above to work in health informatics.
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2021-09-14 at 6:07 am #31296
Saranath
KeymasterTo be exact, public health informatics is the sub-discipline that focus on the population. You may have heard health informatics or clinical informatics which focus on individual health data. But both health or public health informatics would require similar skills and knowledge as you mention.
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2021-09-10 at 2:58 pm #31256
Ashaya.i
ParticipantAs I am a medical statistic officer who has the background in public health field, I would need to gain more knowledge about computer science, information technology and innovation. IT knowledge plays the important role in healthcare field and also every field in the world right now. As my background, my main responsibilities are involved in health data collection system but I do not know the structure and the component behind those systems. I think studying in health data management and data standard will useful both in improving my current work and my future profession. Moreover, I have to deeper study about public health practice for making those health information visualize and useful.
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2021-09-12 at 2:58 am #31270
Anawat ratchatorn
ParticipantMy background is a physician (GP), so to become a decent health informatician, basically, I have to gain a lot more about IT skills and management skills. Now, I am a CIO for a private hospital. Therefore, it make me gain some IT and management skills. Although I work in this position for a while, there are a lot more to learn in both skills. Particular skills that I want to learn more are these following
1. Project Management Skills <- I want to learn more about AGILE, SCRUM and Progression Tracking Skills, It might help me to be a good informatician, to be a bridge between healthcare prividers and IT professional staffs.
2. Programming Skills <- Either programming like building web-application or Python and R Language for data science is very essential for me to understand the process and improve my individual skill.
3. Statistical Skills <- I am physician who rarely go deep into statistic. Statistics is obviously important for being an infotmatician. It’s my weakness, so I have to learn a lot more about statistics.-
2021-09-14 at 6:15 am #31298
Saranath
KeymasterIt’s great that you have background experience in managing health IT projects. We will learn more on project management in another class. Statistics is always a weak point for physicians. Learning on how to deal and use with the numbers would be very useful.
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2021-09-12 at 3:05 pm #31272
chanapong
ParticipantAs a physician currently training in physical medicine and rehabilitation, I have to acquire more skills and knowledge to become a health informatician as following.
1. Public health knowledge (epidemiology, clinical statistics, disease surveillance) is an important part of public health informatics. I had little knowledge in this field when I was a medical student. So, I want to learn more in this field to apply and utilize the knowledge in various settings.
2. Computer sciences are another crucial part I have to learn. Programming skills, like R, Python, or SQL are useful when we analyze and utilize the data. And data visualization programs, such as Tableau or Google Data Studio, are also the part I want to learn more, to increase audiences’ perception of the presenting data.
3. Legal issues about data privacy and cybersecurity, such as PDPA, are an essential part of health informatician knowledge. We have to know about these issues to manage our organization’s data legally.
4. Organizational management skill is a skill I what to improve. Collaboration with your team member or other teams using communication and project management skill is an important skill helping the organization run smoothly and succeed in its goals.
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2021-09-14 at 6:17 am #31300
Saranath
KeymasterIt’s great that you brought up the legal issues. Legal and ethics issues are important when working with health data.
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2021-09-15 at 7:46 pm #31321
Auswin Rojanasumapong
ParticipantI agree with you about legal issues. Although the government postpones the implementation of the Thai Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), we should be the first group to be ready when it is enforced.
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2021-09-15 at 10:01 pm #31329
Taksin Ukkahad
ParticipantI really agree with the data privacy and legal issue because the informatician worked among pool of patient and population health data which directly effected to many stakeholders in many parts. So, data privacy and legal issue skill should implement for data management under a legal regulation with the benefit of patient especially in confidentiality.
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2021-09-14 at 9:39 pm #31310
Theekhathat Huapai
ParticipantMy current work is as a general practitioner working in pediatrics OPD and health promotion clinic. I have a good competency in medicine.
To improve the quality of health care service. I have to gain new knowledge about public health informatics, both technical and management skills.On the technical side, I have to learn about public health to understand general population health better in terms of health protection, health improvement, health service. Epidemiology and biostatistics are important disciplinary to understand the underlying mechanism of population health. Programming and information technology are crucial knowledge to accelerate implementing a program in a wider area.
Management skill, including legal and political knowledge, is useful in working with interdisciplinary and other organizations.
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2021-09-15 at 9:47 pm #31328
Taksin Ukkahad
ParticipantAs known that health informatic is multidiscipline approach, the several knowledge and skills are need to be core competences for the informatician. According to my background as a general practitioner, there are many skills that I would like to achieve for improving the profession in public health as briefly described bellowing
1. Interpersonal skill : For my opinion, it’s a most important skill that all physicians and informaticians need because we worked as a bridge between many core domains like clinical medicine, information technology and public health. it’s including communication, human resource management, conflicts solution and teamwork skills.
2. Critical justification: One of the challenging issue in public health informatic is heterogeneity of data that received from various sources, and not mean that all of data are useful for clinical practice. So, critical justification or critical thinking play major role in order to classify the useful data (to be information) from the pool of big data.
3. Data presentation skill: Although useful data or information are established, but if the informatician is poor data presentation technique, will directly effected to clinical decision making. Not only presentation skill that concerned, but also data/information selection skill which informatician should be think that the information is important or affect to clinical practice (need to present?)
4. Computer science ,data security and confidentiality : It’s one of important knowledge that all informatician should practice because we play role as the big data manager who collect/analyze/manage the data that directly effect to patient confidential and also public health level.
Taksin U.
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2021-09-15 at 11:52 pm #31334
Hazem Abouelfetouh
ParticipantBased on my background in Clinical Research and IT, Developing a health informatics system requires strong project management skills besides the essential knowledge in many areas to work and achieve positive communication with multidisciplinary team members.
For me, I am looking to strengthen my skills in statistics and data analysis. Also to improve my knowledge about other professionals in healthcare and their roles as a party in any public health informatics.
Also, understanding the legal issues and data privacy are important to be considered during the design and development of public health informatics.
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2021-09-18 at 12:29 am #31369
Pimthong Sinchai
ParticipantTo be a professional in public health or health informatic, The important skills that I should improve would be computer and information science. Based on my background as a Biomed student, I usually familiar with the epidemiology and microbiology in the class, but I did not focus on computer and information science much. Nowadays, Computer science skill is the important thing that plays role in the development of public health, to improve the people health.
Not only the computer science is considered to play an important role but also Psychology and communications too. Because we have to collect the data from a lot of people, and of course, dealing with people is the hardest part of developing public health. So, if I improve all these skills, the professional would not be that hard.Thank you.
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2021-09-19 at 2:50 pm #31424
Weerada Trongtranonth
ParticipantBased on my background as a GP. The important skills that would help me to be a professional Health informatician are Programming and IT skills, epidemiology and also Statistical skills. Btw, management skill is very important and need to be improved.
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