Thursday #medlibs will discuss the 2013 Horizon Report- Higher Education edition, “a decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education.”
When we are talking higher education it is barely just a hop, skip, and a jump to think of how all of it will impact libraries in higher education. While academic libraries will see the impact quicker, hospital libraries aren’t immune to the changes. Because what is considered trending technology by medical students will be common place when they enter their residency programs in the hospitals and will be outdated when they are staff physicians.
So what kind of technology does the Horizon Report list and what will be talking about on #medlibs?
Happening in one year or less according Horizon:
(I say it is happening now)
- Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
- Tablet Computing
Happening 2-3 years:
- Big Data and Learning Analytics
- Game Based Learning
Happening 4-5 years:
- 3D Printing
- Wearable Technology
As a hospital librarian I have to say that tablet’s have exploded and it is in our world now. Big Data is the next “big money” thing that hospital librarians need to be aware of. There are already academic librarian positions for data management dealing with research. Hospital librarians might think that they don’t need to worry about data management because their institution doesn’t really do research. WRONG?!?!
If your hospital has an EMR, it has tons of data that it needs to manage and most likely that data is either just sitting there in the EMR or communicating poorly with a few of the hodge podge of other computer systems within your hospital.
Hospitals eligible for Medicare EHR Incentive Programs must demonstrate meaningful use of the EHR technology. “Eligible hospitals and CAHs that do not successfully demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology will be subject to Medicare payment adjustments beginning in FY 2015.” Read that as penalized.
Personally I see data management as a natural extension for libraries that have already been involved with IT and the EMR.
Here are two examples of many where hospitals are mining the data within the EMR to improve care.
- The Value of Data: It’s How You Use It.
- Health Fidelity Receives Grant from National Science Foundation to Support Use of EHR Data to Improve Quality of Care.
Perhaps I am old and my memory is failing but weren’t librarians talking about data mining in 2000? IT was mining for data withing bibliographic databases, but aren’t the principles the same? Data mining and the EHR are one avenue that hospital librarians who are interested in the future of librarianship need to consider.
The Horizon Report lists other technologies, how do you see them impacting hospital librarians and when? Feel free to comment below or better yet, join us Thursday at 9pm est. for the #medlibs discussion on Twitter. (The easiest way to follow a discussion on Twitter is go to TweetChat, login using your Twitter login, then follow the #medlibs hastag.)