Introduction to health informatics course

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1. Health Informatics Series: Health Informatics
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Health Informatics Series
Introduction to Health Informatics
Mark H. Spohr, MD
Health Care Informatics
IER/HIS, World Health
Organization, 20, Avenue Appia,
CH-1211 Geneva 27
SWITZERLAND

2. Health Informatics Series: Health Informatics
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Why Health Informatics?
Health Informatics provides
information to make decisions
Better information leads to better
decisions
Health care, management, planning
and policy all need good information

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Health Informatics
The intersection of information
science, computer science, and health
care.
It deals with the resources, devices
and methods required to optimize the
acquisition, storage, retrieval and use
of information in health.

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Tools
Health informatics tools include not
only computers but also clinical
guidelines, formal medical
terminologies, and information and
communication systems.

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CDC Health Informatics
CDC's National Center for Public Health
Informatics (NCPHI) provides leadership in
the application of information and computer
science and technology to public health
practice, research, and learning.
–Electronic health record support of public health
functions
–Use of health care, population and other public health
data in supporting public health systems and analyses
–Basic capabilities that support public health practice
such as statistical and health surveillance
–Public Health decision support

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eHealth
eHealth is a broad term for healthcare
practice which is supported by electronic
processes and communication.
The term can encompass a range of
services that are at the edge of
medicine/healthcare and information
technology.

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mHealth
Mobile Health
Mobile technologies such as
mobile phones to collect and
access health information.

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Informatics ≠ IT
Information Technology is not
Informatics
Information technology is
hardware & software.
•IT is to nouns, as informatics is to verbs.
•Informatics helps IT ‘work appropriately.’

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Key Elements of Informatics
Acquisition
Storage
Communication
Manipulation
Display

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Health Information Systems
Context

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Health Informatics Principles
Use drives data
Interoperability using open standards
Incremental development and
strengthening of systems
Enterprise Architecture approach
Collaborative Communities

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Decisions Determine Data

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Incremental strengthening of
systems
You always have legacy systems
The goal should not be to implement a
single system but to encourage the
development of interoperable systems.
If it works, enhance it!
Much easier to make continuous small
improvements than to re-design and
re-implement the entire system
Enterprise Architecture Approach

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Enterprise Architecture

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Encourage open systems

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Make vs. Buy… Or Modify
Buy Software
–May not be an exact fit to your needs
Build Software
–Long expensive process not guaranteed to succeed.
Modify
–Start with open source software that you can modify
–Modified software to meet your exact requirements
–Everyone benefits from your investment in the software

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Collaborative communities of
practice

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Health Informatics Series
Mark H. Spohr, MD
–email: [email protected]
Lectures in this series:
–Introduction to Health Informatics
–Enterprise Architecture
–Interoperability
–National Health Information Systems
–Patient Identifiers
–Software Selection