Healthcare Assignment

• Visit “Get Real Health’s Lydia” PHR at https://yourlifeyourdata.com/ , explore the various features so you understand what this application does. Sign in or create a new account so you can input some health information. Look at which tools and software applications interface with Get Real Health’s Lydia.

• List 3 ways to add information to Get Real Health’s Lydia.
• List 3 functions within Get Real Health’s Lydia that would be important to you, justify your answer.
• In a paragraph or two discuss Get Real Health’s Lydia and how it will help improve patient outcomes. Do you see any future changes? Your statements should provide clear evidence that you have explored these resources using the guidelines above.

• Much of public health informatics involves the application of disease surveillance and monitoring systems. These systems collect and provide data for epidemiologists, biostatisticians and other public health professionals to analyze to get a better picture of public health status. Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce http://phpartners.org/health_stats.html is a collaborative of local, state, territorial, national and private partners that provides up-to-date resources and information for public health professionals. There is a list of many of the widely used surveillance systems, databases, reports and tools in the field compiled by the collaborative. Browse several of the links in each subheading (Tools for Data Collection and Planning, GIS, etc.).

• Choose one of the resources and summarize the data tool/resource and explain why it is significant in a short paragraph.
• How do these tools and data help health professionals and the public?
• What do we gain from analyzing this data?

• Review the following web sites:

• WebMD Flu Trends http://symptoms.webmd.com/cold-and-flu-map-tool/ : Go to this site and see if you see a trend. Describe what you see.
• Could this same approach be used for other conditions?
• What other conditions that are monitored as part of syndromic surveillance would be appropriate using this approach?
• HealthMap www.healthmap.org : Go to this site and type in “H1N1” to see what is going on in the United States.
• How does this compare to the data from WebMD Flu Trends website?
• Type in your zip code and check if there any disease alerts near you.

Total: 15 points. 8 points for question (1): 3 (a), 3(b), 2 (c).
3 points for question (2). 4 points for question (3)