Forwarding this message from Scot who is unable to register for this list but is responding to the discussion:
Rakesh, I probably cannot post to the EVIDENCE-BASED-HEALTH group, so please pass this along:
The need for information is often much more than a question about medical knowledge. Doctors are looking for guidance, psychological support, affirmation, commiseration, sympathy, judgment, and feedback. This "information need" is particularly poorly explored
I strongly agree with the above passage, find it quite novel and apropos, but foresee even greater difficulties "selling" this information need to the IT and finance personnel who generally control information tools in the enterprise. For example, at the link below is what occurred at one of the largest pharma research labs in the world, where selling the idea that drug discovery scientists needed the best informatics tools fell flat. Not intuitive, but that's the way it was.
See:
"Sure path to R&D failure: Conflation of IT with information science in the pharmaceutical industry"
http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=cases&sloc=pharma
Scot
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Scot M. Silverstein, MD
Consultant in Medical Informatics
Teaching faculty in Healthcare Informatics and IT (Sept. 2007-)
Director, Institute for Healthcare Informatics (2005-7)
College of Information Science and Technology
Drexel University
3141 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104-2875
Email:
[log in to unmask]
Bio:
www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/biography.htmCommon Examples of HIT difficulty:
www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/medinfo.htm
ARS KU3E, member
www.arrl.org________________________________________
