Contemporary Health Informatics

by Mark L. Braunstein

Health informatics-the application of information technology to healthcare delivery-is changing dramatically because of federal investment in adoption, new cloud-based technologies to encourage data sharing and patient participation, and new financial incentives to encourage coordinated care. The traditional provider- and hospital-centric view of care and health information technology is morphing into one which combines electronic records with the Internet for information exchange and data from low cost mobile- and home-based devices to create a comprehensive, more holistic electronic health record of each patient's care. This text emphasizes these contemporary approaches through a focus on ambulatory care for chronic disease, arguably the major challenge for US healthcare. Contemporary Health Informatics is divided into four background on the US healthcare system and federal policies intended to re-engineer it; the core technologies of health information technology; the application of these technologies in state-of-the-art real-world products and solutions; and the mining, analysis, and visualization of the vast amounts of newly available digital health data to gain knowledge and improve care delivery. Key Features written within the context of current health informatics Grounded in actual numerous case studies illustrate the practical applications of the technologies discussed Forward based on the evolution of the healthcare system away from hospitals and toward primary and community care Written for a broad based on Dr. Braunstein's MOOC that has proven successful for learners from healthcare providers to information technologists to those with numerous other health- related backgrounds and skill sets

280 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

I've been involved with health informatics since well before it was recognized as a useful field! Yes, that goes back to gigantic computers with virtually no horsepower or memory by today's standards. For example, my early work on an electronic medical record was on a DEC PDP-15 'mini computer' (actually quite large) with 64,000 bytes of main (core) memory and twin 30 MB hard drives!

Nevertheless, those of us in the field actually did useful work back then as I try to explain in my latest book, Health Informatics on FHIR: How HL7's New API is Transforming Healthcare. It is intended to be a broad introduction to the field for readers from a variety of backgrounds. No technical skills required. It starts with a historical perspective and a brief review of the challenges facing healthcare delivery as we all live longer and develop chronic diseases. It then focuses on the FHIR API-based interoperability standard that is having an enormously positive impact on innovation in the field and, in my view, offers great promise for really helping to overcome the challenges I reviewed earlier. I provide numerous case studies to demonstrate why that is the case.

After over 20 years in the commercial health IT segment I've been teaching at Georgia Tech since 2007 where I'm involved in various research projects and work with and advise numerous community and industry groups.

In my spare time I love to cook and enjoy fine wine!

Reviews

[Cris Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book influenced my study of the progress of informatics.

[Nasar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice entry level overview of health informatics.