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What is Health Informatics?
The heart of the health-care delivery system in the United States
is the interaction between the individual health care professional
and a patient. From this interaction flow decisions and actions
by both the professional and the patient that affect the well-being
of the patient, the economic vitality of both parties, and the social
and economic context within which they function. Our entire system
of health care is based on these interactions and their documentation
in clinical records that are being transformed into computer-based
information systems. Driven by the escalating costs of medical care,
a growing knowledge base and evidence of deficient quality, there
is a critical need to develop information systems that lead to more
effective decisions and more efficient actions. Meeting this need
requires an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars from the
fields of computer, information, management and cognitive sciences
with knowledgeable practitioners from areas including medicine,
nursing, pharmacy and dentistry. This is the interdisciplinary field
of health informatics whose ultimate goal is to develop methods
and systems that lead to more effective decisions and actions that
are made and executed with greater efficiency.
The term “informatics” has been growing in usage during
the last decade. Typically it refers to the application of computer
science to problems in a particular discipline or field. As such
its usage resembles the use of the term engineering to refer to
a field of applied endeavor such as chemical engineering. The Health
Informatics program makes use of this term to refer to the use of
the principles and practices of computer science in addressing the
problems of health care. Health Informatics is an interdisciplinary
field of scholarship that applies computer, information and cognitive
sciences to promote the effective and efficient use and analysis
of information to improve the health, well-being and economic functioning
of society. It is an applied field that attempts to train health
care practitioners in medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy and
veterinary medicine as well as those with backgrounds in computer
science to use the problem solving techniques and tools developed
in the study of computer science to create systems and tools specific
to the needs of health care.
The role informatics plays in modern medical care continues to
expand. Physicians, pharmacists, dentists, nurses and veterinarians
make constant use of computer-based information systems to maintain
patient records, order and carry out treatment programs, review
and monitor patients and collect payments for their services. Recent
private and federal government initiatives to improve the safety
of patient care have focused heavily on the use of information technology.
The applications of computer technology are a significantly and
everyday component of practice in all areas of care. Yet most professionals
in practice today have had no training that either enables them
to understand and cope with the onslaught of technological developments
or to guide and control the use of the technologies in their profession.
The Health Informatics graduate program has attempted to address
the education of health professionals in the application of the
principals of computer science to the problems of health care for
the last 25 years. Over that period of time the program has graduated
students who have gone on to occupy a number of prestigious positions
including Chief Information Officer of Partners Healthcare in Boston,
the largest health care organization in the Boston area, and the
president of Myriad Genetics Laboratory a rapidly growing biotechnology
firm located in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Consequent to extensive deliberations, the faculty of the program
has determined that a professionally oriented Master of Science
program under the governance of the Health Informatics Graduate
program that could be completed in one calendar year with classes
that more closely align with the schedules of working health professionals
would better address this problem. It could also provide a single
year in addition to the four years of training for the MD degree
that would prepare medical students to both understand the applications
of information technology in medicine and for leadership positions
in the area.
The MHI program is designed to train students in the following
competencies:
1. Knowledge of the breadth and depth of information technology
applications in medical care.
2. Ability to use web-based technologies to disseminate and collect
health-related information.
3. Understanding of the role and function of data communications
in health care.
4. Ability to design and build a database application that will
support patient care using a systematic, software engineering process.
5. Ability to develop an information technology solution to a problem
in health care using methods of systems analysis.
6. Ability to design and carry out a project to evaluate the impact
and success of introducing an information system into a medical
environment.
7. Knowledge of methods of decision support in health care.
8. Knowledge of the legal, ethical and security issues in the use
of medical information.
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