Chapter 2

Introduction to Information,
Information Science, and Information
Systems
 Objectives
• Reflect on the progression from data to
information to knowledge.
• Describe the term information.
• Assess how information is acquired.
• Explore the characteristics of quality
information.
• Describe an information system.
 Objectives
• Explore data acquisition or input and
processing or retrieval, analysis and synthesis
of data.
• Assess output or reports, documents,
summaries alerts and outcomes.
• Describe information dissemination and
feedback.
 Objectives
• Define information science.

• Assess how information is processed.

• Explore how knowledge is generated in

information science.
 Key Terms Defined
• Acquisition - The act of acquiring, to locate and hold;
We acquire data and information.
• Alerts - Warnings or additional information provided
to clinicians to help with decision making; the action of
the clinician or system triggers the generation of an
alert; an example of when an alert could be generated
would be if the patient's serum potassium level is high
and they are on potassium chloride, the system would
alert the nurse on the screen (soft copy alert) with or
without audio and/or by a printed (hard copy alert)
warning; also know as triggers.
 Key Terms Defined
• Analysis - Separating a whole into its
elements or component parts; examination of
a concept or phenomena, its elements, and
their relations.
• Chief Information Officers (CIO) - CIO is
involved with the information technology
infrastructure and this role is sometimes
expanded to Chief Knowledge Officer.
 Key Terms Defined
• Chief Technical Officers (CTO) or Chief
Technology Officers (CTO) -
Is/are focused on organizationally-based
scientific and technical issues and responsible
for technological research and development
as part of the organization’s products and
services.
 Key Terms Defined
• Cognitive Science - The interdisciplinary field
that studies the mind, intelligence and
behavior from an information processing
perspective. According to Wikipedia (2007),
“The term cognitive science was coined by
Christopher Longuet-Higgins in his 1973
commentary on the Lighthill report, which
concerned the then-current state of Artificial
Intelligence research” (¶ 1).
 Key Terms Defined
• Communication Science - Area of
concentration or discipline that studies human
communication.
• Computer-Based Information System (CBIS) –
Information systems used in the professional
arena that are computer based.
 Key Terms Defined
• Computer Science - Branch of engineering (application
of science) that studies the theoretical foundations of
information and computation and their
implementation and application in computer systems;
study of storage/memory, conversion and
transformation, and transfer or transmission of
information in machines, that is computers, through
both algorithms and practical implementation
problems, algorithms are detailed unambiguous action
sequences in the design, efficiency and application and
practical implementation problems deal with the
software and hardware.
 Key Terms Defined
• Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) - A
collaborative effort to adopt health
information interoperability standards,
particularly health vocabulary and messaging
standards, for implementation in federal
government systems.
• Data - Raw fact; lacks meaning.
 Key Terms Defined
• Dissemination - It is not simply the act of
scattering or spreading but a thoughtful,
intentional, goal-oriented communication of
specific, useful information or knowledge.
• Document - Represent information that can be
printed, saved, emailed or shared, or displayed;
communication in the form of written, or text,
audio, video, graphic, photographic, pictorial or
any blending of these means used to describe
some characteristics or elements of an object,
system or practice.
 Key Terms Defined
• Electronic Health Record (EHR) - A data
warehouse or repository of information
regarding the health status of a client, replacing
the former paper-based medical record; it is the
systematic documentation of a client’s health
status and healthcare in a secured digital format,
meaning that it can be processed, stored,
transmitted and accessed by authorized
interdisciplinary professionals for the purpose of
supporting efficient, high quality healthcare
across the client’s healthcare continuum;
 Key Terms Defined
• Electronic Health Record (EHR) - cont’d(also known as
an Electronic Medical Record):  An electronic health or
medical record is a computer-based patient medical
record that can be used to collect and look up patient
data by physicians or health professionals at various
locations such as doctor’s offices or hospitals.  The
record includes information such as patient problems,
medications, allergies, laboratory results, etc.
(Certification Commission for Healthcare Information
Technology [CCHIT], 2007).also known as electronic
medical record (EMR).
 Key Terms Defined
• Federal Health Information Exchange (FHIE) - A
Federal Information Technology (IT) health care
initiative that enables the secure electronic one-
way exchange of patient medical information
from Department of Defense's legacy health
information system, the Composite Health Care
System (CHCS), for all separated service members
to Veteran Affair's (VA) VistA Computerized
Patient Record System (CPRS) - the point of care
in Veteran Affairs. 
 Key Terms Defined
• Feedback - Input in the form of opinions about or
reactions to something such as shared
knowledge; in an ISs, feedback refers to
information from the system that is used to make
modifications in the input, processing actions or
outputs.
• Health Information Exchange (HIE) – an
organization charged with preparing and
organizing people and resources to manage
healthcare information electronically across
organizations within a community or region.
 Key Terms Defined
• Health Level Seven (HL7) - Level Seven in HL7’s name
means the “highest level of the International Standards
Organization's (ISO) communications model for Open
Systems Interconnection (OSI) - the application level. The
application level addresses definition of the data to be
exchanged, the timing of the interchange, and the
communication of certain errors to the application. The
seventh level supports such functions as security checks,
participant identification, availability checks, exchange
mechanism negotiations and, most importantly, data
exchange structuring” (¶ 5); HL7 (n.d.) “is one of several
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) -accredited
Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) operating in
the healthcare arena” ¶ 1).
 Key Terms Defined
• Health Level Seven (HL7) – (cont’d) Their mission
states that “HL7 provides standards for interoperability
that improve care delivery, optimize workflow, reduce
ambiguity, and enhance knowledge transfer among all
of our stakeholders, including healthcare providers,
government agencies, the vendor community, fellow
SDOs and patients” (¶ 5). HL7 was initially associated
with HIPAA in 1996 through the creation of a Claims
Attachments Special Interest Group charged with
standardizing the supplemental information needed to
support healthcare insurance and other e-commerce
transactions.
 Key Terms Defined
• Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE) –
an example of a regionally based health
information exchange
• Information - Data that are interpreted,
organized, or structured; data that is
processed using knowledge or data made
functional through the application of
knowledge.
 Key Terms Defined
Information Science - Can be thought of as the science of
information, studying the application and usage of
information and knowledge in organizations and the
interfacings or interaction between people, organizations
and information systems.
• It is an extensive, interdisciplinary science that integrates
features from cognitive science, communication science,
computer science, library science and social sciences.
• Information science is primarily concerned with the input,
processing, output, and feedback of data and information
through technology integration with a focus on
comprehending the perspective of the stakeholders
involved and then applying information technology as
needed. (cont’d)
 Key Terms Defined
Information Science – (cont’d)
• It is systemically based, dealing with the big picture
rather than individual pieces of technology.
• Information science can be related to determinism. It
is a “Response to technological determinism, the belief
that technology develops by its own laws, that it
realizes its own potential, limited only by the material
resources available, and must therefore be regarded as
an autonomous system controlling and ultimately
permeating all other subsystems of society"
(Wikipedia, 2007, ¶ 2; Web Dictionary of Cybernetics
and Systems, 2007).
 Key Terms Defined
• Information System (IS) - "group of
components that interact to produce
information. The system that uses a computer
to produce information is considered
automated." (Mastrian, McGonigle &
Pavlekovsky, 2007, p. 181); the manual and/or
automated components of a system of users
or people, recorded data and actions used to
process the data into information for a user,
group of users or an organization.
 Key Terms Defined
• Information Technology (IT) - use of hardware,
software, services, and supporting infrastructure to
manage and deliver information using voice, data,
and video or the use of technologies from
computing, electronics, and telecommunications to
process and distribute information in digital and
other forms; anything related to computing
technology, such as networking, hardware, software,
the Internet, or the people that work with these
technologies. Many hospitals have IT departments
for managing the computers, networks, and other
technical areas of the healthcare industry.
 Key Terms Defined
• Infrastructure - is generally structural elements
that provide the framework supporting an entire
structure. The term has diverse meanings in
different fields, but is perhaps most widely
understood to refer to roads, airports, and
utilities. These various elements may collectively
be termed civil infrastructure, municipal
infrastructure, or simply public works, although
they may be developed and operated as private-
sector or government enterprises. (cont’d)
 Key Terms Defined
• Infrastructure - (cont’d)In other applications,
infrastructure may refer to information
technology, informal and formal channels of
communication, software development tools,
political and social networks, beliefs held by
members of particular groups. Still underlying
these more general uses is the concept that
infrastructure provides organizing structure and
support for the system or organization it serves,
whether it is a city, a nation, or a corporation
(Wikipedia, 2007, ¶ 1,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure)
 Key Terms Defined
• Input - Entering or alterations that are put into a
system; enter or change data and information in a
system in order to activate or modify a process;
gathering and capturing raw data.
• Interface - Mechanism or a system used by separate
things to interact for example, if you want to change a
CD in your CD Player, you could use a remote, you are
not related to the CD Player but you can interact using
the remote control, therefore, the remote control
becomes the interface that enables you to tell the CD
Player which CD you want to play.
 Key Terms Defined
• Knowledge - The awareness and understanding of a set of
information and ways that information can be made useful
to support a specific task or arrive at a decision; abounds
with others’ thoughts and information; information that is
synthesized so that relationships are identified and
formalized; understanding that comes through a process of
interaction or experience with world around us ; info that
has judgment applied to it or meaning extracted from it;
processed information that helps to clarify or explain some
portion of our environment or world that we can use as a
basis for action or upon which we can act; internal process
of thinking or cognition; external process of testing, senses,
observation, interacting.
 Key Terms Defined
• Knowledge Worker - Work with information
and generate information and knowledge as a
product.
• Library Science - An interdisciplinary science
that integrates law, applied science and the
humanities, to study issues and topics related
to libraries (collection, organization,
preservation, archiving and dissemination of
information resources).
 Key Terms Defined
• Massachusetts Health Data Consortium
(MAHD) - A consortium of regional healthcare
organizations that collect data, publish
comparative information, support and
promote electronic standards, education and
research.
 Key Terms Defined
• National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) - An
initiative set forth to improve the effectiveness,
efficiency and overall quality of health and health care
in the United States; a comprehensive knowledge-
based network of interoperable systems of clinical,
public health, and personal health information that
would improve decision-making by making health
information available when and where it is
needed; the set of technologies, standards,
applications, systems, values, and laws that support all
facets of individual health, health care, and public
health; voluntary and not a centralized database of
medical records or a government regulation.
 Key Terms Defined
• National Health Information Network (NHIN)
- Goal is to keep pharmacy prepared to meet
healthcare needs and access, safely and
conveniently.
• New England Health EDI Network (NEHEN) -
Is an example of an implementation model for
building RHIOs that are functional, sustainable
and growing while reducing administrative
costs.
 Key Terms Defined
• Next Generation Internet (NGI) - A
government project to develop new, faster
technologies to enhance research and
communication.
• Outcome - Changes, results and/or impacts
from inputting and processing.
• Output - Changes which exit a system and
that can activate or modify processing.
 Key Terms Defined
• Processing - To act on something by taking it
through established procedures in order to
convert it from one form to another; for
example: information is processed data or we
process a credit application to get a loan.
• Rapid Syndromic Validation Project (RSVP) -
System where local healthcare professionals
report cases such as the influenza via the RSVP
system where data is analyzed centrally and the
resulting information is shared with appropriate
local authorities.
 Key Terms Defined
• Report - Documents that contain data or
information based on a query or investigation
designed to yield customized content in
relation to a situation and a user, group of
users, or an organization; designed to inform,
reports may include recommendations or
suggestions based on programming and other
embedded parameters.
 Key Terms Defined
• Social Sciences - Collection of
academic/scientific fields or disciplines
concerned with the study of the human
aspects of our world/environment.
• Stakeholders - An individual or group with the
responsibility for completing a project,
influencing the overall design, and is most
impacted by success or failure of the system
implementation.
 Key Terms Defined
• Summaries - Condensed versions of the
original designed to highlight the major
points.
• Synthesis - Assimilation or integration of two
or more pre-existing elements resulting in a
new concept or creation; task of putting
together pieces or parts to form a new whole
(Wikipedia, 2007).
 Key Terms Defined
• Telecommunications - Broadcasting or
transmitting signals over a distance from one
person to another person or from one
location to another location for the purpose of
communication.
 Introduction
• In this chapter you will be exploring information,
information systems and information science.
• As healthcare professionals, we are knowledge
workers and deal with information on a daily
basis.
• With the gauntlet of an Electronic Health Record
(EHR) being set, public and private sector
stakeholders have been collaborating on a wide-
ranging variety of healthcare information
solutions.
 Information
• Information is processed data that has
meaning.
• There are many types of data that we must
deal with such as alpha, numeric, audio, image
and video data.
• Some of the alphanumeric data that we are
concerned with is in the form of our patient’s
name, ID or medical record numbers.
 Information
• Image data would include graphics and pictures
such as graphic monitor displays or recorded
Electrocardiograms, X-rays, MRIs and CT scans to
name a few.
• Video data refers to animations, moving pictures
or moving graphics.
• Data integrity can be compromised through
human error, viruses, worms, or other bugs,
hardware failures or crashes, transmission errors,
and/or hackers entering the system.
 Information
• Information technologies can help to decrease
these errors by putting safeguards in place
such as backing up files on a routine basis,
error detection for transmissions and
developing user interfaces that help people
enter the data correctly.
• It is imperative that we have clean data if we
want quality information.
 Information
• Quality of information is necessary for it to be
valuable.
• There are several characteristics of valuable,
quality information such as accessibility,
secure, timely, accurate, relevant, complete,
flexible, reliable, objective, has utility,
transparency, verifiable and reproducible.
 Information
• The two ways that we acquire information are
either by actively looking for it or having it
conveyed to us by our environment.
• Currently, we receive information from our
computers (output), through our vision,
hearing or touch (input), and we respond
(output), to the computer (input), and this is
how we interface with technology.
 Information Science
• Information science can be thought of as the science of
information, studying the application and usage of
information and knowledge in organizations and the
interfacings or interaction between people,
organizations and information systems.
• Information science is primarily concerned with the
input, processing, output, and feedback of data and
information through technology integration with a
focus on comprehending the perspective of the
stakeholders involved and then applying information
technology as needed.
 Information Science
• Information science can be related to
determinism.
• Our society is dominated by the need for
information and knowledge and information
science focuses on systems as well as individual
users fostering user-centered approaches that
enhance society’s information capabilities by
effectively and efficiently linking people,
information and technology.
 Information Processing
• Information science enables the processing of
information.
• Humans are organic information systems
constantly acquiring, processing and generating
information or knowledge both in our
professional and personal lives.
• Information is data that is processed using
knowledge. In order for information to be
valuable, it must be accessible, accurate, timely,
complete, cost-effective, flexible, reliable,
relevant, simple, verifiable and secure.
 Information Processing
• Knowledge is the awareness and understanding
of a set of information and ways that information
can be made useful to support a specific task or
arrive at a decision.
• Knowledge must be viable.
• Knowledge viability refers to applications that
offer easily accessible, accurate and timely
information obtained from a variety of resources
and methods and presented in a manner as to
provide us with the necessary elements to
generate knowledge.
 Information Processing
• Information science and computational tools are
extremely important in enabling the processing
of data, information and knowledge in
healthcare.
• The links between information processing and
scientific discovery are paramount.
• Knowledge and wisdom are not synonymous
since knowledge abounds with others’ thoughts
and information while wisdom is focused on our
own minds and the synthesis of our experience,
insight, understanding and knowledge.
 Information Science and The
Foundation of Knowledge
• Information science is a multidisciplinary science
that involves aspects from computer science,
cognitive science, social science, communication
science and library science to deal with obtaining,
gathering, organizing, manipulating, managing,
storing, retrieving, recapturing, disposing of,
distributing or broadcasting information.
• Information science studies everything that deals
with information and can be defined as the study
of information systems.
 Information Science and The
Foundation of Knowledge
• This science originated as a sub-discipline of
computer science, in an attempt to
understand and rationalize the management
of technology within organizations.
• Information science impacts information
interfacing, influencing how we interact with
information, and subsequently develop and
use knowledge.
 Information Science and The
Foundation of Knowledge
• Healthcare organizations have been
profoundly affected by the evolution of and
rely on information science to enhance the
recording and processing of routine and
intimate information while facilitating human-
to-human and human-to-systems
communications, delivery of healthcare
products, dissemination of information and
enhancing the organization’s business
transactions.
 Information Science and The
Foundation of Knowledge
• Information science has had a tremendous
impact on society and will expand its sphere
of influence as it continues to evolve and
innovate human activities at all levels,
especially the nature of our work.
 Introduction to Information Systems
• Information and information technology have
become major resources for organizations and
healthcare is no exception.
• Information technologies help to shape the
healthcare organization, in conjunction with
the personnel or people, money, materials
and equipment.
 Introduction to Information Systems
• In healthcare, information systems must be
able to handle the volume of data and
information necessary to generate the needed
information and knowledge for best practices,
the basis of our actions, since our goal is to
provide the highest quality of patient care.
 Information System
• Information systems can be manually-based but
for the purposes of this text, we are referring to
computer-based information systems.
• ISs are designed for specific purposes within
organizations.
• The IS’s capability to disseminate, provide
feedback and adjust the data and information
based on these dynamic processes are what sets
them apart from other computer systems.
 Information System
• Processing, the retrieval, analysis and/or
synthesis of data, refers to the alteration and
transformation of the data into helpful or
useful information and outputs.
• The processing of data can range from storing
it for future use to comparing the data,
making calculations or applying formulas, to
taking selective actions.
 Information System
• Output or dissemination produces helpful or
useful information that can be in the form of
reports, documents, summaries, alerts or
outcomes.
• Documents represent information that can be
printed, saved, emailed or shared, or
displayed.
 Information System
• Outcomes are the expected results of input and
processing.
• Output devices are combinations of hardware,
software and telecommunications and include
sound and speech synthesis outputs, printers and
monitors.
• The IS must also be able to generate payment
either electronically or by generating a bill, and
storing the transactional record for future use.
 Information System
• Feedback or responses are reactions to the
inputting, processing and outputs.
• In ISs, feedback refers to information from the
system that is used to make modifications in
the input, processing actions or outputs.
 Thought Provoking Questions
• How do you acquire information? Choose two
hours out of your busy day and try to take
note of all of the information that you receive
from your environment. Keep a diary denoting
where the information came from and how
you knew it was information and not data.
 Thought Provoking Questions
• Reflect on an information system that you are
familiar with such as the automatic banking
machine. How does this IS function? What are
the advantages of using this system i.e., in the
banking machine example, why not use a bank
teller instead? What are the disadvantages?
Are there enhancements that you would add
to this system?
 Thought Provoking Questions
• In healthcare, think about a typical day of
practice and describe the setting, how many
times does the nurse interact with ISs? What
are the IS that we interact with and how do
we access them? Are they at the bedside,
handheld or station-based? How does their
location and ease of access impact nursing
care?
 Thought Provoking Questions
• Since our society is dominated by the need for
information and knowledge and information
science focuses on systems as well as individual
users fostering user-centered approaches that
enhance society’s information capabilities by
effectively and efficiently linking people,
information and technology. Briefly describe an
organization and discuss how this impacts the
configuration and mix of organizations and
influences the nature of work or how knowledge
workers interact with and produce information
and knowledge in this setting.
 Thought Provoking Questions
• Information systems support and facilitate the
functioning of people to enhance and evolve
nursing practice by generating knowledge.
This knowledge represents five rights: the
right information, accessible by the right
people in the right settings, applied the right
way at the right time. It is also the struggle to
integrate new knowledge and old knowledge
to enhance wisdom. (cont’d)
 Thought Provoking Questions
• (cont’d) If clinicians are inundated with data
without the ability to process it, this yields too
little wisdom. That is why it is crucial that
clinicians have viable information systems at their
fingertips to facilitate the acquisition, sharing and
utilization of knowledge while maturing wisdom;
it is a process of empowerment. If you could only
meet 4 of the Rights, which one would you omit
and why? Also, provide your rationale for each
Right you chose to meet.