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Health Care and Technology: STEM Careers in Two Years As executive director of the Life Science Career Alliance, Colleen Hamilton believes that working in health care can “really change people’s lives.” And although she’s well aware of the industry’s challenges, Hamilton firmly believes that you don’t have to be a doctor or a college-educated researcher to find success in the medical field. This program explores the high-tech side of working in the industry, showing that health care technology jobs are not only fulfilling but also lucrative and challenging. Case studies feature Randy, a certified biomedical equipment technician (or CBET) at New Jersey’s Deborah Heart and Lung Center, as well as Luz, a surgical technologist, and Steve, a cath lab technician—both of whom work for Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University Hospital. These employees and their coworkers describe the job searches they went through and the professional, emotional, and financial rewards that come from what they do. (20 minutes)
Electronic Health Records Whether they are needed to ensure properly dispensed prescriptions, monitor a patient’s recovery, or make an urgently needed diagnosis, accurate health records are crucial to a patient’s safety. This program highlights the important work of health information technicians and shows how electronic health records can help make medical care both safer and more efficient. In-depth commentary on medical information technology and its challenges comes from Dr. David Bates, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Don Detmer, professor of medical education at the University of Virginia. Both are leading experts in medical informatics. (28 minutes)
Health Information Management Because of a growing need for detailed records, health information management technicians are increasingly in demand. This program looks at the specific duties and peculiarities of the HIM tech’s job, focusing on organizational and process-related skills. Responsibilities highlighted in the video include maintaining databases of medical records, complying with legal and ethical privacy guidelines, managing diagnostic and procedural codes, and producing reports for physicians to analyze. Featuring conversations with skilled practitioners in the field, the program explains the steps to becoming an HIM technician, including graduation from a two-year, CAHIIM-accredited associate degree program and passing the AHIMA written exam. (24 minutes)
When searching for information in the sciences it is important to know that there are two main types of information you will encounter: primary and secondary sources.
Primary sources are resources that report the results of original scientific research, written by those who did the research, that has not been published anywhere else.
If a publication comments on, evaluates, or discusses the original research report, then it is a secondary source, not a primary one.
Primary Source | Secondary Source | |
DEFINITIONS | Original materials that have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation by a second party. | Sources that contain commentary on or a discussion about a primary source. |
TIMING OF PUBLICATION CYCLE | Primary sources tend to come first in the publication cycle. | Secondary sources tend to come second in the publication cycle. |
FORMATS--depends on the kind of analysis being conducted. | Conference papers, dissertations, interviews, laboratory notebooks, patents, a study reported in a journal article, a survey reported in a journal article, and technical reports. | Review articles, magazine articles, and books. |
Example: Scientists studying Genetically Modified Foods. | Article in a scholarly journal reporting methodology and results of an original research study on GMO foods. | Article or book analyzing, comparing, and commenting on the results of a number of original research studies. |
Source: The Evolution of Scientific Information (from Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, vol. 26) & GTCC Library Guide.