Determinants of Course Grades in Allied Health Sciences Programs.

Past research has shown that there is a pattern of systematic grade inflation in higher education in the U.S. As a result, it is difficult for prospective employers and graduate school admission directors to distinguish bright candidates when recruiting new graduates. The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to determine the grading patterns of four academic departments (i.e., rehabilitation services, communication science and disorders, social work, and nursing) in an allied health college at a large public university over time, and 2) to consider which instructor demographic factors and course characteristics might influence the grading patterns. Using an archival data set, the grades for 1,892 course sections over 12 semesters were examined. The results showed that the Department of Social Work had the highest semester GPAs, and that approximately 20% of the variance in course GPAs was due to course characteristics, with instructor characteristics only explaining 3% of the variance. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Kaiser Permanente's Convergent Medical Terminology.

This paper describes Kaiser Permanente's (KP) enterprise-wide medical terminology solution, referred to as our Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT). Initially developed to serve the needs of a regional electronic health record, CMT has evolved into a core KP asset, serving as the common terminology across all applications. CMT serves as the definitive source of concept definitions for the organization, provides a consistent structure and access method to all codes used by the organization, and is KP's language of interoperability, with cross-mappings to regional ancillary systems and administrative billing codes. The core of CMT is comprised of SNOMED CT, laboratory LOINC, and First DataBank drug terminology. These are integrated into a single poly-hierarchically structured knowledge base. Cross map sets provide bi-directional translations between CMT and ancillary applications and administrative billing codes. Context sets provide subsets of CMT for use in specific contexts. Our experience with CMT has lead us to conclude that a successful terminology solution requires that: (1) usability considerations are an organizational priority; (2) "interface" terminology is differentiated from "reference" terminology; (3) it be easy for clinicians to find the concepts they need; (4) the immediate value of coded data be apparent to clinician user; (5) there be a well defined approach to terminology extensions. Over the past several years, there has been substantial progress made in the domain coverage and standardization of medical terminology. KP has learned to exploit that terminology in ways that are clinician-acceptable and that provide powerful options for data analysis and reporting.