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
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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
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re-implement the entire system
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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: mhspohr@gmail.com

Lectures in this series:

– Introduction to Health Informatics
– Enterprise Architecture
– Interoperability
– National Health Information Systems
– Patient Identifiers
– Software Selection

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