Chapter 1 investigates asks the question how do financial frictions affect the type of human capital investments that students make in college? To study this question, I build a novel dataset covering more than 700,000 U.S. students, merging commencement records with address histories, credit bureau records, and professional resumes. I document…

Precision medicine refers to the delivering of customized treatment to patients based on their individual characteristics, and aims to reduce adverse events, improve diagnostic methods, and enhance the efficacy of therapies. Among efforts to achieve the goals of precision medicine, researchers have used observational data for developing predictive…

Health Information Technology (HIT) has the potential of improving the overall performance of healthcare organizations. However, there are worldwide evidence of HIT resistance and avoidance behaviors. IS researchers have provided valuable insights about these behaviors towards IT in general. Very limited work has aimed to explain these behaviors…

This study examines the internationalization process of an urban research university in the Midwest in order to understand how the process approach of internationalization (De Wit, 2002) frames the university's international planning and activities and makes an impact on their effectiveness. De Wit's (2002) internationalization circle was employed…

The purpose of this study is to determine the levels of concern of Illinois principals regarding the adoption of an evaluation system modeled after Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching. Principal demographics and involvement in the use of and professional development surrounding Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching were studied for…

Electronic health records (EHRs) will soon become the standard for documenting nursing care. The EHR holds the promise of rapid access to complete records of a patient's encounter with the healthcare system. It is the expectation that healthcare providers input essential data that communicates important patient information to support quality…

Government initiatives called for electronic health records for each individual healthcare consumer by 2014. The purpose of the initiatives is to provide for the common exchange of clinical information between healthcare consumers, healthcare providers, third-party payers and public healthcare officials. This exchange of healthcare information…

Many models currently exist for evaluating acceptance and continued use of technology. However, none of these models are healthcare specific, nor do they involve aspects of users' personality. Although the five-factor model (FFM) of personality has been effectively used in psychology and human resources and management research to predict…

In information systems development, end-users have shifted in their role: from consumers of information to informants for requirements to developers of systems. This shift in the role of users has also changed how information systems are developed. Instead of systems developers creating specifications for software or end-users creating small…

The accelerating cost of healthcare in the United States has prompted increased policy debate. Although it is estimated that prescription drug spending accounts for only eleven percent of total healthcare expenditures, there is evidence that this rate of spending is increasing faster than spending on other types of healthcare. A proven method of…

Physicians, nurses, and other clinical staff rely on alarms from various bedside monitors and sensors to alert when there is a change in the patient's clinical status, typically when urgent intervention is necessary. These alarms are usually embedded directly within the sensor or monitor and lacks the context of the patient's medical history and…

This study examined participants' perceptions of the effectiveness of a new job-training program designed to enhance the authentic learning in adult learners using an electronic medical records system at a naval health clinic. This job-training program lacked data about participants' perceptions of this learning process by which to gauge its…

Background: The U.S. health care system has been under immense scrutiny for ever-increasing costs and poor health outcomes for its patients. Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) has emerged as a generally accepted practice by providers, policy makers, and scientists as an approach to identify the most clinical- and cost-effective interventions…

In the quest for database usability, several applications enable users to design custom forms using a graphical interface, and forward engineer the forms into new databases. The path-breaking aspect of such applications is that users are completely shielded from the technicalities of database creation. Despite this innovation, the process of…

Collaborative information sharing tends to be highly dynamic and often ad hoc among organizations. The dynamic natures and sharing patterns in ad-hoc collaboration impose a need for a comprehensive and flexible approach to reflecting and coping with the unique access control requirements associated with the environment. This dissertation…