Health Informatics

Book excerpt: Historically, informatics was considered as a technology for automating clinical decision making and processes. This book views informatics as a transforming technology, one that alters the structure of clinical processes and broader health organizations. It explores the use of health information technology from a systems perspective. The traditional three-pronged informatics model--cellular, clinical, and population--is expanded to include dynamic systems, which adds to and alters previous conceptions. This text integrates the medical, nursing, and healthcare IT professions. Its primary audience is graduate and professional students. Fifteen evidenced-based cases are used through the text to illustrate each chapter's concepts. Each chapter includes learning objectives, presents key concepts, and discussion questions. Topics covered include: The application and function of electronic medical records The importance of concept-based controlled biomedical vocabularies How to identify different e-health platforms How to recognize the technical safeguards required by the HIPAA Security Rule How information technology can change the role of the patient Instructor Resources: PowerPoint slides of the exhibits and answers/talking points for the discussion questions and case studies. To see a sample, click on the Instructor Resource sample tab above.