Health Informatics
Introduction
Health informatics is the bridging of computer science, information and the health care field. This interdisciplinary field can be applied to a range of medical fields such as nursing, biomedicine, medicine and subspecialties such as immunology (immunoinformatics). Informatics not only has roles to play in day-to-day areas of immunology such as data storage/retrieval, decision support, standards and electronic health care records but also in research and education such as data mining and simulation systems (Coiera, 2002). Informatics and more specifically, health informatics first started being used in in the late 1950s with the rise of computers (Ho, 2010). Technologies such as computers allowed practitioners and researches to sort, store and retrieve information like never before (Ho, 2010). As the advantages of informatics increased, so did technology which further disseminated health informatics into the healthcare industry. This essay will be discussing the six main areas of health informatics. These areas include telemedicine, decision support, data mining, electronic health records, standards and finally simulation systems (mhoff, Webb, & Goldschmidt, 2001). These areas of health informatics are more predominate in some areas of the health care industry than others. However, they all influence each area in some way. For example, decision support systems are used extensively by medical practitioners in day-to-day work. On the other hand, researches would rarely rely on decision support systems within their area of expertise. In contrast, researches may use simulation systems and data mining more expensively than the medical practitioner. However, this is not to say that either profession is not influenced in some way by each area of health informatics. In this essay we will also be giving a more specific focus on the subspecialty of medicine: immunology and how health informatics has, currently and potentially will impact on this field of
Health informatics is the bridging of computer science, information and the health care field. This interdisciplinary field can be applied to a range of medical fields such as nursing, biomedicine, medicine and subspecialties such as immunology (immunoinformatics). Informatics not only has roles to play in day-to-day areas of immunology such as data storage/retrieval, decision support, standards and electronic health care records but also in research and education such as data mining and simulation systems (Coiera, 2002). Informatics and more specifically, health informatics first started being used in in the late 1950s with the rise of computers (Ho, 2010). Technologies such as computers allowed practitioners and researches to sort, store and retrieve information like never before (Ho, 2010). As the advantages of informatics increased, so did technology which further disseminated health informatics into the healthcare industry. This essay will be discussing the six main areas of health informatics. These areas include telemedicine, decision support, data mining, electronic health records, standards and finally simulation systems (mhoff, Webb, & Goldschmidt, 2001). These areas of health informatics are more predominate in some areas of the health care industry than others. However, they all influence each area in some way. For example, decision support systems are used extensively by medical practitioners in day-to-day work. On the other hand, researches would rarely rely on decision support systems within their area of expertise. In contrast, researches may use simulation systems and data mining more expensively than the medical practitioner. However, this is not to say that either profession is not influenced in some way by each area of health informatics. In this essay we will also be giving a more specific focus on the subspecialty of medicine: immunology and how health informatics has, currently and potentially will impact on this field of