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
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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