Course description

Course Contents

In this course the student will learn different research designs to evaluate the effects of medical or ICT interventions. The importance of triangulation, i.e. using different methods (quanlitative as well as quantitative) will be discussed. The effects or benefits as well as the costs of an ICT intervention need to be evaluated. Methods from health technology assessment will be taught. Similarities and differences between evaluation of medical and ICT interventions will be discussed. From different perspectives the principles of evaluation methods, especially those relevant for medical informatics, will be illustrated. Among others the following subjects will be discussed:

• Research design for evaluation studies (week 1 of the course)
• Formative versus summative evaluation (week 1 and 2 of the course)
• Different types of outcome measures to evaluate effectiveness, efficiency and usability of an intervention (week 1 and 2 of the course)
• Quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods (week 1 and 2 of the course)
• Objectivistic and subjectivistic evaluation (week 1, 2 and 4 of the course)
• Usability engineering and evaluation methodology (week 2 and 4 fo the course)
• Health Techonolgy Assessment and cost studies (week 3 of the course)
• QALY's and DALY's (week 3 of the course)

 

Course lay-out

On Monday morning theorectical classes will provide students basic theory about one or more subjects which has to be studied and practiced during half a week based on text-books, scientific papers and exercises. Some Monday afternoons will be used for practicals. On Friday morning or afternoon the students will present the results of the exercises and may ask feedback of the tutor.

 

Educational goals

New interventions in healthcare, medical as well as ICT interventions, should be thoroughly evaluated on their effect on healthcare before they can be implemented and used on a regular basis. Effects of these interventions can be subdivided into effectiveness (does it work), efficiency (the relation between effects and costs) and usability (are people willing and able to use it). Each of these aspects can be evaluated by using different evaluation designs (e.g. RCT's, before-after clinical trials, observational and case studies) and different outcome measures (e.g. adherence to guidelines, mortality, cost of care, user satisfaction).

 

ICT can often be regarded as a diagnostic or therapeutic intervention and is getting more attention in healthcare because of the promises that ICT will improve effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare. Physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers are increasingly supported by technical devices to diagnose and treat patients. Furthermore, due to a tendency towards multi-disciplinairy care communication between healthcare workers is becoming more and more important. Also patients themselves and parties outside the direct patient care process such as government and health insurance companies feel the need for more information to better control the care process. ICT is often regarded as a solution for this. To accept or reject this hypothesis the effect of ICT in healthcare need to be evaluated.

 

The Master course Bio-Medical Research & Evaluation Methodology aims to learn students the aspects and importance of evaluation studies in healthcare. After this course students should be able to recognize, assess as well as to apply methods to evaluate the effects of a medical intervention or an ICT intervention in healthcare. Similarities and differences between approaches used to evaluate medical interventions and ICT interventions will be discussed.

 

Involved departments

• Clinical Informatics

 

Evaluation

Evaluation of the course and assignments

I like the course and in particular usability engineering and evaluation methodology. Not much attention is paid to usability; while it is one of the most important topics in system engineering. Furthermore it was interesting to learn more about evaluation methodology; the first assignment was easy, but it was interesting to develop guidelines for evaluation of medical informatical research articles. The health technology assignment was interesting, but it was not clear what we had to do exactly. The assignment became very vague and we spent a lot of time to finish this assingment. As a group we spent a significant amount of time to finish all the assignments (three in total); but there were groups that had not done anything and the results were below acceptable levels, I did not understand how they managed to successfully pass this course. The exam was vague and several times I did not understand what type of answer I had to give; the correction report was even more misty. However I managed to pass the exam the first time. I learned a lot and I have improved my communication skills and writing skills. Furthermore I would like to know more about usability and healthcare enhancement programmes, I liked the subject and may be I will find a good job in this area.