Exam: Final 2
                              
            (Introduction to Medical Informatics)
         (http://www.cpmc.columbia.edu/edu/textbook)
  
1.   What are the goals (advantages) telemedicine?
  
2.   What are the advantages and disadvantages of installing
     a "monolithic" clinical information system?
  
3.   You perform decision analysis to decide whether a
     patient should have surgery on his leg. As part of the
     analysis, the patient reports that to him, living 10 years
     with an injured leg is worth about 7 or 8 years living with
     a healthy leg. If you take his lower estimate (7 years),
     then the analysis shows that the overall utility of surgery
     is 12 years, whereas the overall utility of no surgery is 11
     years. But if you take his higher estimate (8 years), then
     the analysis shows that the overall utility of surgery is 10
     years, whereas the overall utility of no surgery is 11
     years. What would be your conclusion?
  
4.   Algorithmic decision-support methods use "if-then"
     statements, and production rule system use "if-then" rules.
     What is the difference in the two kinds of "if-then"?
  
5.   QMR (Quick Medical Reference) represents knowledge in
     disease profiles. For each finding-disease pair, there is a
     frequency and an evoking strength. Why do there need to be
     two parameters?
  
6.   Ten years ago, it was thought that medical education
     would rapidly become computerized. This has not happended.
     Why?
  
7.   Why were some parts of the laboratory (eg, chemistry
     and hematology) quicker to computerized than other parts of
     the laboratory (eg, microbiology and anatomic pathology).

8.   The same computer system is assessed in two different
     studies. One study shows that the system is beneficial,
     whereas the other shows that the system is not beneficial.
     What might be the reasons for the difference?