Introduction to

medical informatics
● Team leaders:
“Special thanks to Aseel Badukhon for template”
Afnan Almustafa & Saif Almeshari
● Done by:
Mashael Alkahtani Tamim Alwahibi

Aseel Badukhon Anas Alsaif

Maha Barakah Yazeed Alshathry

Arwa Aljohany

● Revived by:
Aseel Badukhon

Color code: Notes Imp Book Golden notes Extra

 Medical Informatics

Informatics The science concerned with gathering, manipulating, storing,

retrieving and classifying recorded information.
Not in 437’s lecture but important

● Is a rapidly developing scientific field that deals with the

storage, retrieval, and optimal use of biomedical
Medical Informatics information,data, and knowledge for problem solving
and decision making.

● Medical Informatics comprises the theoretical and

practical aspects of information processing and
communication, based on knowledge and experience
derived from processes in medicine.Not in 437’s lecture but
important

Important ● Is the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the

effective uses of biomedical data, information, and
knowledge for scientific inquiry (research), problem solving
Biomedical Informatics , and decision making, driven by efforts to improve
(BMI) human health . E.H. Shortliffe and Marsden S. Blois 2014

● The collection, organization, and analysis of large amounts

of biological data, using computers and databases.

● Historically, bioinformatics concerned itself with the

analysis of the sequences of genes and their products
Bioinformatics1
(proteins), but the field has since expanded to the
management, processing, analysis, and visualization of
large quantities of data from genomics, proteomics, drug
screening, and medicinal chemistry.

● It includes the integration and “mining” of the

ever-expanding databases of information from these
disciplines.
 No
te
s
Difference between:
1-Data:
Raw material, not processed and it is not only number; it can be graphs. Data alone does not provide any meaning
unless the
person has a reference and a knowledge about this data.
2-Information:
Analysis. You start to refer the data to another value to have a meaning that can be understood and later be compared
to other information to get the knowledge. Examples are mean and standard deviation.
3-Knowledge:
Interpretation, you are trying to get a message from the information you have; refer to other information.

In a research, data is what you collect, your target population. Information is the analysis. Knowledge is the discussion.

-Medical informatics is found to be an important field in medical practice in improving the delivered healthcare and also
for the enhancement of patient engagement with the healthcare organizations. It is to support clinicians not to replace
them with robots! A human can’t remember everything because they are influenced by many factors and having a
supporting system with them is important to reduce errors.
-Informatics main focus is not technology as implicated by many (very common misconception) but it primarily focuses
on information. Technology is used to process the information which is the focus of this science.
-Informatics has been used in many areas in medical practice for the purpose of improving healthcare; examples of
such applications;
1-OVR (this system of reporting errors is advanced nowadays to achieve better errors reporting and get the solutions)
(This application is a clinical informatics)
2-Radiology (Telemedicine, to have consultations from experts around the world when needed)(Using technology to
obtain better images and still your focus as a physician is the information in which you will be able to write a report
about it accurately because your image was good and a teleconsultation with an expert was done)

-Medical informatics is not only theoretical but also include practical part.
-In clinics, medical informatics is used for decision support by which we know as “Telemedicine”

1:
-One of the most important practices of bioinformatics is personalized medicine.
-Try to find explanations for why some medications or treatment work with others while other patients don’t work with
them (mining)
-How personalized medicine can help? Radiation used to treat some types of cancer was found to be less effective
with those who have darker skin. The radiation was not targeting the cancer cells instead it was accumulating in the
patient body leading to negative effect. So when we know the genes of these patients we can personalize the
treatment according to them!

Everything you do in practice is relying on information. Patient comes and The first thing we do is taking history (information). Next we look to
the patient file (medical information). Then we request for tests (information) then we go to the literature (informational knowledge) and we
bring all the information in front of us in order to take a decision so practitioners spend more than 50% of their time dealing with information.
This science is focusing on dealing with all these information in order to take the right decision. (from 436 teamwork)
O ▪ Russian: informatika 1968 by AI Mikhailov, "Oznovy Informatika" ("Foundation of
Informatics") structure and properties of scientific information”
R ▪ French: informatique de medecine 1968 university departments established with
I this title
G ▪ English: first appeared in 1970s Columbia University changed its name from Medical
I Information Science to medical informatics. Columbia university is a pioneer in the education of
N informatics for medical graduates

Don’t memorize the dates

● 1950s:
H ○ In the mid 1950s was the development of expert systems such as MYCIN (first
medical informatics system) and INTERNEST-I.
I ● 1970:

S ○ The international medical informatics association was founded. In the same year
the MUMPS language and operating system was developed and used for clinical
T applications.
1996:
O
●
○ In the United States in 1996, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and
R Accountability Act) regulations concerning privacy and medical record
transmission created the impetus for large numbers of physicians to move
Y towards using EMR (Electronic Medical Record) software, primarily for the
purpose of secure medical billing.

This page isn’t in 437’s lecture but the doctor said it’s important
+they are included in exams and quizzes
 Health Informatics
▪ Health informatics: is the intersection of information science, computer science and health
care.

▪ It deals with resources, devices, & methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage,
retrieval, and use of information in health and biomedicine. To understand only.

▪ Health informatics tools include clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, information
& communication systems. It is applied to the areas of nursing, clinical care, dentistry,
pharmacy, public health and (bio)medical research.

▪ Biomedical informatics is an experimental science characterized by posing questions, designing

experiments, performing analyses, and using the information to design new experiments. By:
1-Basic research: simply to search for new knowledge.
2-Applications (applied) research: to use the knowledge for practical ends.

▪ Biomedical Informatics in Perspective:

Basic research Applied Research And Practice

Biomedical Informatics Methods, Techniques, and Theories

Health informatics

applied research: Bioinformatic Imaging Clinical Public Health

Informatics Informatics Informatics

Molecular and
Cellular Processes Tissues and Individuals Populations And
Organs (Patients) Society

Notes
1. In the past, health informatics was the big umbrella in which all other subtypes of informatics
concerned with health are under! Now it is different, Biomedical Informatics became the umbrella
and all other subtypes are under it. (It is both theoretical and practical) .
2. Health informatics includes both Clinical informatics and Public health informatics
3. Informatics is a spectrum; found at all levels of patient care starting from the molecular level
(Bioinformatics) to population level (Public health informatics).
4. Telehealth and Consumer Health informatics are both examples of Public health informatics.
 Application of Medical
Informatics

● It is composed of the Greek word τελε (tele) meaning

'far', and medicine.
● It is therefore the delivery of medicine at a distance.
A more extensive definition is that it is the use of modern
Telemedicine
●
telecommunication and information technologies for the
provision of clinical care to individuals located at a
distance and to the transmission of information to
provide that care.
-Examples of telemedicine:
1-Teleconsultation (this requires the consultant to have an access to the patient
‫؟‬telemedicine and tele-health ‫أﻳﺶ اﻟﻔﺮق ﺑﻴﻦ‬ information so he/she can do the consultation)
‫اﻷوﻟﻰ ﺗﻌﻨﻲ ﻓﻘﻂ ﺑﺘﺸﺨﻴﺺ اﻟﻤﺮﺿﻰ وﻋﻼﺟﻬﻢ‬ 2-Teleradiology
‫ﻣﺜﻼ اﻟﻜﺒﺎر‬
ً ،‫اﻟﺜﺎﻧﻴﺔ ﺗﻌﻨﻰ ﺑﺘﻘﺪﻳﻢ ﺧﺪﻣﺎت ﻟﻠﻤﺮﺿﻰ‬
‫)ﻣﺜﻼ‬
ً ‫ﺑﺎﻟﺴﻦ ﻧﺘﺄﻛﺪ ﻣﻦ ﻣﺮاﻗﺒﺘﻪ وﻫﻮ ﻓﻲ ﺑﻴﺘﻪ‬ -Telemedicine vs Telehealth:
‫ﺟﻬﺎز ﻳﺸﻮف إذا اﻟﻤﺮﻳﺾ ﻃﺎح وﻻ ﻻ‬
Telemedicine is from an expert to another while telehealth between the expert and
consumers (patients)

The delivery of health related services, enabled by the

innovative use of technology, such as videoconferencing,
Telehealth without the need for travel.
-Telehealth was established because of the aging age group who need a support
especially those who are lonely to provide support at home and also for home
monitoring.

● Also written e-health, is a relatively recent term for

healthcare practice which is supported by electronic
Ehealth processes and communication, some people would
argue the term is interchangeable with Health
-E-health was used for business reasons Informatics.
(selling and buying medical devices and
drugs). Nowadays is used for all ● Four essential components make the e-health:
applications used for healthcare such as
heartbeat monitors .. etc
1. Medical knowledge (data, information, knowledge) that
lends itself to being stored in computer files (digital
format)
2. People who are willing/able to share, apply and use this
knowledge
3. Data processing equipment to record, store and process
this data
4. Telecommunication facilities to transfer (exchange) this
data electronically between remote locations.
Cont.
Electronic Medical Record
EMR is important for decision support
;
if a patient had a pacemaker and you
● A general term describing computer-based patient
wanted to do an MRI, this system won’t record systems. It is sometimes extended to include
allow you to do such a thing and disaster other functions like order entry for medications and
was avoided. Another example is
drug-drug interaction and also allergies!
tests, amongst other common functions.

● Is the name given to the application of information

Dental Informatics technology to dentistry.
● It is often considered a subset of Medical Informatics
and Biomedical Informatics.
Dental practice use medical informatics more than medical practice because these
practitioners take the case from A to Z alone.

Nursing Informatics is a specialty of Health Informatics (like

Medical Informatics, Consumer Health Informatics, and
Telehealth) which deals with the support of nursing by
information systems in delivery, communication,
Nursing Informatics
documentation, administration and evaluation of patient
care and prevention of diseases.
Nursing depend on informatics a lot because they do a lot of documentations (A LOT of
it!!). Another example, a nurse can’t give a patient a medication until they check the
patient code with a device that has all patients information about the drugs.

‫ ﺗﻜﻮن‬،‫ﻣﻦ اﻷﻣﺜﻠﺔ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ اﻟﻼب ﺗﻮﺑﺎت اﻟﻤﻮﺟﻮدة ﻋﻠﻰ اﻟﻌﺮﺑﺎت اﻟﻤﻮﺟﻮدة ﻓﻲ ﻛﻞ ﺟﻨﺎح‬
‫اﻟﻤﻤﺮﺿﺔ ﺗﻜﺘﺐ اﺳﻢ اﻟﺪواء وﻃﺮﻳﻘﺔ إﻋﻄﺎء اﻟﺪواء واﻟﺠﺮﻋﺔ اﻟﺼﺢ ﻓﺎﻟﺪﻛﺘﻮر‬
(436 ‫ﻳﺴﺘﺨﺪم اﻟﺪواء اﻟﺼﺢ ﺑﺎﻟﻄﺮﻳﻘﺔ اﻟﺼﺢ واﻟﺠﺮﻋﺔ اﻟﺼﺢ )ﺗﻴﻢ‬

● Definition: The science of medicine advances at

such a rapid rate that much of what is taught
becomes outmoded, and it has become obligatory for
physicians to be lifelong learners, both for their own
Continuing Medical satisfaction and, increasingly, as a formal
Education (CME): government requirement to maintain licensure.
● Doctors who practice in rural areas or other more
isolated locations may face considerable obstacles to
obtain hours for CME.
● The cost of web-based or online CME is much lower
than the cost of traditional CME.
Blackboard used in our college is an example and also DXR
 Cont.
“is the process of systematically reviewing, appraising and
Evidence Based
●
using clinical research findings to aid the delivery of
Medicine optimum clinical care to patients.”
● Entails a system that provides information on appropriate
treatment under certain patient conditions.

Why EBM is part of informatics?

● A healthcare professional can look up whether his/her
Because all knowledge must be up diagnosis is in line with latest (up to date) scientific research
to date and get these we need a findings.
medium for that in which all can
reach and also a fast one. ● The advantage is that the practice can be kept up-to-date
with published knowledge.
-What is the difference between ● 'the integration of best research evidence with clinical
evidence based practice and none?
Latest knowledge! expertise and patient values‘ which when applied by
-EBM is found to reduce errors. The practitioners will ultimately lead to improved patient
knowledge has to be structured. outcome.
● There are three main pillars or components of evidence
based practice:
1. Best evidence: clinical research that has been conducted
using rigorous methodology
2. Clinical expertise refers to the clinician's cumulated
education, experience and clinical skills
3. Patients preferences, values and concerns which patient
brings to a clinical encounter.
● It is clear that EBM depends on the structured knowledge
databases that contains the most recent and valid clinical
research output. It is the integration of best and latest
evidence with clinical expertise and patent values
●
component could improve the clinical practice outcome and
patients’ satisfactions.

● With aid of telecommunications technologies and internet,

distance learning is now widely applied in may universities,
Distance learning eg: Open University.
● It is now possible to earn university degrees from home, at
every level from bachelor’s to doctorate.
Tele-Health Vs e-health?!
1. E-health is much more than tele-health as tele is a limiting factor to the form of
technology in health. E-health could be at distance or local.
2. The practice of telemedicine will become more prominent and will be part of the
mainstream of Healthcare.
3. It will become increasingly difficult to differentiate telemedicine from many other uses
of technology in the delivery of healthcare.E-health is all inclusive and captures the use
of Internet technologies and the rise of the information economy. This includes:
information technology, telecommunication technology, Data transmission
protocols and techniques.
4. E-Health is all inclusive and captures all types of Healthcare and Healthcare
professionals: it is not limited to medicine and not limited to doctors.

Why Medical Informatics (Read for your own benefit)

for Healthcare?
● Eliminate and reduce errors.
Improve Healthcare quality.
● Increase healthcare organization
●
Better data access.
efficiency.
●
Faster data retrieval and storage.
● Reducing cost and achieves quality of
●
High quality data.
healthcare.
●
Support medical and non-medical
● Reduce duplication of efforts .
●
decision-making.
● Improve staff productivity.
● Enhance quality assurance .
● Sharing medical data.
● Enhance out-come researches and studying
● Reduce redundant tests, services and
programs.
information entry.
● Provide unified access to all existing data.
● Manage billing and payment system.
 This is very important!!!

important!!!

No
● Research + Clinical = Evidence Based Medicine te
●
●
Research + Administration + Clinical + Additional = HIS (Hospital Information System)
Clinical + Telecommunication = Telemedicine
s
● Clinical + Telecommunication + Additional = Telehealth (Additional= more than one specialty
(e.g. doctors + nurses + pharmacists…etc) so health information can be applied to different areas such as nursing, dentistry,
pharmacy, biology.

-PMI (Patient Master Index) is an important system that includes patient basic information which don’t change (should be
written for once such as name, date of birth, gender, vaccination, allergy..etc). All departments have an access and share it.
it concern with registration, out and in patient
-We can use EBM in education when we hand the students a case that requires up to date information to manage it
-Abbreviations:
1-DL (Distance learning)
2-PBM (Problem based medicine)
-E-learning an example of that the stimulation center in the medical education.
-Databases is used to look for patient information for research porpuse (436 teamwork)

-Modeling: ‫ﻣﺜﺎل ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ ﻓﻲ ﺗﺠﺮﺑﺔ ﺳﻮوﻫﺎ ﺑﺤﻴﺚ ﺟﻬﺎز ﻳﻘﺮا اﻟﺼﻮر اﻹﺷﻌﺎﻋﻴﺔ ﻟﻠﺜﺪي وﺗﺤﺎﻟﻴﻞ اﻟﻤﺨﺘﺒﺮ ﺛﻢ ﻳﺸﺨﺺ إذا ﻓﻴﻪ‬
‫ ﻋﻜﺲ اﻻﺳﺘﺸﺎري‬٪١٠٠ ‫ﺳﺮﻃﺎن أو ﻻ ﻣﻘﺎرﻧﺔ ﺑﺘﺸﺨﻴﺺ ﻃﺒﻴﺐ اﺳﺘﺸﺎري وﻟﻤﻦ اﻧﺘﻬﯩﺖ اﻟﺘﺠﺮﺑﺔ ﻻﻗﻮا إن اﻟﺠﻬﺎز دﻗﺔ ﺗﺸﺨﻴﺼﻪ‬
‫ ﻣﻤﺎ ﻳﻌﻨﻲ إن ﺗﻄﺒﻴﻖ‬٪٧٠ ‫ اﻟﻠﻲ ﻛﺎﻧﺖ‬informatics ‫ﻣﻔﻴﺪ ﺟﺪً ا ﻟﻠﻤﺮﺿﻰ‬. (teamwork 436)
 Medical informatics definitions

1. “Medical informatics attempts to provide the theoretical and scientific basis for the
application of computer and automated information systems to biomedicine and health
affairs..medical informatics studies biomedical information, data, and knowledge - their
storage, retrieval, and optimal use for problem-solving and decision-making.”Lindberg,
D.A.B. NLM Long Range Plan. Report of the Board of Regents, 1987, p. 31.

2. Medical informatics is a developing body of knowledge and a set of techniques

concerning the organizational management of information in support of medical
research, education, and patient care.

3. Medical informatics combines medical science with several technologies and disciplines
in the information and computer sciences and provides methodologies by which these
can contribute to better use of the medical knowledge base and ultimately to better
medical care.“ definition by Asso. of American Medical Colleges

4. "Medical informatics is the application of computer technology to all fields of medicine

- medical care, medical teaching,and medical research." Preliminary announcement for the Third
World Conference on Medical Informatics, MEDINFO 80, 1977.

5. "Medical informatics is the application of computers, communications and information

technology and systems to all fields of medicine - medical care, medical education and
medical research.“ definition by MF Collen (MEDINFO '80, Tokyo, later extended).

6. "Medical Informatics is the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption

and application of IT-based innovations in healthcare services delivery, management
and planning.“

7. Greenes and Shortliffe described medical informatics as "the field that concerns itself
with the cognitive, information processing, and communication tasks of medical
practice, education, and research, including the information science and the technology
to support these tasks.“ 1

Why so many definitions ?

Because informatics is interdisciplinary field.
In the definition they included all the three (data, information and knowledge) because the focus on one will lead
to different conclusion.

Doctor said: don’t memorize all these definitions but understand the main idea
 Summary of the book

Terminology
▪ nce: refer to the subdivision of computer science that applies the
methods of the larger field to medical topics
▪ Information science (occasionally used in conjunction with computer science):
originated in the field of library science and is used to refer to management of both
paper-based and electronically stored information. It’s now drawing evolving interest
under the name cognitive science. It is now under the name cognitive science
▪ Biomedical computing or biocomputation: implying only that computers are employed
for some purpose in biology or medicine. it includes such topics as (medical statistics,
record keeping, and the study of the nature of medical information itself).

▪ Clinical informatics (medical informatics): applied research and practice topics that
focus on disease and the role of physicians and demands patient-oriented informatics
application

▪ Public Health Informatics: similar methods of medical information are generalized for
application to populations of patients rather than to single individuals ‫ﻳﻌﻨﻲ ﻧﺴﻮي ﺑﺤﺚ‬
‫ﻳﻔﻴﺪ اﻟﻤﺮﺿﻰ واﻟﻤﻌﺎﻟﺠﻴﻦ ﻟﻜﻦ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺴﺘﻮى ﻛﺒﻴﺮ ﺟﺪً ا وﻟﻴﺲ ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺴﺘﻮى ﺷﺨﺺ واﺣﺪ أو‬
‫ﻣﻨﻈﻤﺔ واﺣﺪة‬

▪ Imaging (structural) Informatics: the set of issues developed around both radiology
and other image management and image analysis domains such as pathology,
dermatology

▪ Biomolecular Imaging: involves both bioinformatics and imaging informatics concepts

▪ Consumer Health Informatics: includes elements of both clinical informatics and

public-health informatics

▪ Pharmacogenomics: the effort to infer genetic determinants of human drug response

which requires the analysis of linked genotypic and phenotypic databases, so it is the
intersection of bioinformatics and clinical informatics
 Summary of the book

❖ Biomedical informatics
• Early people were using the terms (medical computing + medical information
science) but these terms confused with library science so they changed them into
medical informatics, but this term seem to be more clinically so they changed it into
health informatics, but this term exclude the biology research so they changed into
biomedical informatics
• So it is (medical computing + medical information science → medical informatics
→ health informatics → biomedical informatics)

❖ History
▪ The first practical application of automatic computing relevant to medicine was by
punched-card data-processing system in epidemiologic and public health surveys
▪ One early activity in biomedical computing was the attempt to construct systems that
would assist a physician in decision making, the other activity was a total hospital
information system (system that concern just on the hospital information)

Integrated Access to Clinical Information: The Future Is Now

▪ Encouraged by health information technology (HIT) vendors, most healthcare institutions
are seeking to develop integrated computer-based information-management
environments.

▪ These are single-entry points into a clinical world in which computational tools assist not
only with patient-care matters (reporting results of tests, allowing direct entry of orders
or patient information by clinicians) but also administrative and financial topics (e.g.,
tracking of patients within the hospital, managing materials and inventory), research (e.g.,
analyzing the outcomes associated with treatments and procedures, supporting clinical
trials, and implementing various treatment protocols), scholarly information (e.g.,
accessing digital libraries, supporting bibliographic search, and providing access to drug
information databases), and even office automation (e.g., providing access to
spreadsheets and document-management soft- ware).

▪ Another theme in the changing world of health care is the increasing investment in the
creation of standard order sets, clinical guidelines, and clinical pathways to recurring
management problems. Several government and professional as well as individual
provider groups often putting an emphasis on using clear evidence from the literature
creating such evidence-based guidelin
 Summary of the book

The importance of Electronic Health Record (EHR)

▪ One argument that warrants emphasis is the importance of the EHR in supporting
clinical trials which is experiments in which data from specific patient interactions are
pooled and analyzed in order to learn about the safety and efficacy of new treatments
or tests and to gain insight into disease processes that are not otherwise well
understood.

Communications Technology and Health Data Integration

▪ The Internet began in 1968 as a U.S. military research in Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA). Internet was known as the ARPANET. The challenge facing widespread
use of internet as health information resource by general public was language barriers
▪ Novel mechanism for allowing a defense computers, to share data files with each other
and to provide remote access which is now known as backbone network
▪ Value for non-military research recognized, and by 1973 the first medically related
research computer had been added. Today, the Internet is ubiquitous, accessible
▪ The explosive growth of the Internet did not occur until the late 1990s, when the
World Wide Web which triggered the growth of medical information that is freely
available. It was introduced and popularized, Why? Navigating the Web is highly
intuitive requires no special training provides a mechanism for access to multimedia
information that accounts for its remarkable growth as a worldwide phenomenon.

The Goal: A Learning Health Care System

▪ straightforward use of electronic health records for direct patient care (writing notes,
asking for investigations…etc.) does not meet some of the requirements, we can use
the information on research or community-based clinical trials to develop standards for
prevention and treatment, with major guidance from biomedical research.
▪ learning health care system: the notion of a system that allows us to learn from what
we do, unlocking the experience that has traditionally been stored in unusable form in
paper charts, we can envision an interconnected community of clinicians and
institutions, building digital data resources using electronic health records.
 Summary of the book

Moving Beyond the Paper Record

Joint development and local adaptation are crucial, which implies that the institutions
that purchase such systems must have local expertise that can oversee and facilitate an
effective implementation process, including elements of process reengineering and cultural
change that are inevitably involved.
Experience has shown that clinicians are “horizontal” users of information technology (
Greenes and Shortliffe 1990 ).

clinical trials experiments in which data from specific patient interactions

are pooled and analyzed in order to learn about the safety and efficacy of new
treatments or tests and to gain insight into disease processes that are not otherwise well
understood.
Despite the success in creating such evidence - based guidelines , there is a growing
recognition that we need better methods for delivering the decision logic to the point
of care. Guidelines that appear in monographs or journal articles tend to sit on shelves,
unavailable when the knowledge they contain would be most valuable to practitioners.
Computer-based tools for implementing such guidelines, and integrating them with the
EHR, present a means for making high-quality advice available in the routine clinical
setting.
Many organizations are accordingly attempting to integrate decision-support tools with
their EHR systems, and there are highly visible efforts underway to provide
computer-based diagnostic decision support to practitioners.
effective EHRs:
(1) the need for standards in the area of clinical terminology;
(2) concerns regarding data privacy, confidentiality, and security;
(3)challenges in data entry by physicians; and
(4) difficulties associated with the integration of record systems with other information
resources in the health care setting.
 Summary of the book

Anticipating the Future of Electronic Health Records

Once the software version has been developed, however, human ingenuity and creativity
often lead to an evolution that extends the software version far beyond what was
initially contemplated. The computer can thus facilitate paradigm shifts in how we think
about such familiar concepts.
powerful desktop-publishing facilities, integration of figures, spelling correction,
grammar aids, “publishing” on the Web, use of color, etc. Similarly, today’s spreadsheet
programs bear little resemblance to the tables of numbers that we once created on
graph paper. To take an example from the financial world, consider automatic teller
machines (ATMs) and their facilitation of today’s worldwide banking in ways that were
never contemplated when the industry depended on human bank tellers.

Communications Technology and Health Data Integration

An obvious opportunity for changing the role and functionality of clinical-care records in the
digital age is the power and ubiquity of the Internet.

A Model of Integrated Disease Surveillance

● Encryption of data : Concerns regarding privacy and data protection require that
Internet
transmission of clinical information occur only if those data are encrypted, with an
established mechanism for identifying and authenticating individuals before they are
allowed to decrypt the information for surveillance or research use.
● Standards for data transmission and sharing : Sharing data over networks requires
that all developers of EHRs and clinical databases adopt a single set of standards
for communicating and exchanging information. The de facto standard for such
sharing, Health Level 7 (HL7).

● A uniform “envelope” for digital communication, such as HL7, does not assure that the
contents of such messages will be understood or standardized. The pooling and
integration of data requires the adoption of standards for clinical termi- nology
and potentially for the schemas.
 Summary of the book

Implications of the Internet for Patients

The penetration of the Internet continues to grow, it is not surprising that increasing
numbers of patients, as well as healthy individuals, are turning to the Internet for
health information.
In a positive light, the new communications technologies offer clinicians creative
ways to interact with their patients and to provide higher quality care. Years ago
medicine adopted the telephone as a standard vehicle for facilitating patient care, and
we now take this kind of interaction with patients for granted. If we extend the audio
channel to include our visual sense as well, typically relying on the Internet as our
communication mechanism, the notion of telemedicine emerges .
This notion of “medicine at a distance” arose early in the twentieth century ,but the
technology was too limited for much penetration of the idea beyond telephone
conversations until the last 30–40 years. The use of telemedicine has subsequently
grown rapidly, and there are specialized settings in which it is already proving to be
successful and cost-effective (e.g., rural care, international medicine, teleradiology ,
and video-based care of patients in prisons).

Education and Training

Computer science training alone is not adequate. Fortunately, we have begun to see
the creation of formal training programs in what has become known as biomedical
informatics that provide custom tailored educational opportunities.
The criteria that are required for successful EHR implementation are sensitive to the
need for data integration, public- health support, and a learning health care system.
 Questions

Q1:Which of the following represents Q4:The collection,organization and

this definition “the theoretical and analysis of large amounts of biological
practical aspects of information data, using computers and databases, is
processing and communication,based the definition which of the following ?
on knowledge and experience derived A-Bioinformatics .
from processes in medicine “ ? B-Chemoinformatics.
A-Medical informatics. C- Medical informatics.
B-Bioinformatics. D-Nursing informatics.
C-Telemedicine.
D-Big data.

Q5:Which one is pillar for evidence

Q2:which of the following terms is based medicine ?
interchangeable with Health A-Bioinformatics .
Informatics? B-E-health.
A-E-health. C-Clinical judgments.
B-Medicine. D-Telehealth.
C-Bioinformatics .
D-Information Science .

Q3:The delivery of health related

services ,enabled by innovative use of
technology without the need for travel ,
refers to which of the following?
A-Telecommuting.
B-Telehealth.
C-Telemedicine .
D-Telecardiology.
2:A.
3:B.
4:A.
5:C
1:A
 Thank You

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