Communication has always been an integral part of healing. Now, with the Information Age and the Digital Revolution impacting health care in profound ways, technology and medicine are linked like never before and there is an emerging academic emphasis on the growing discipline of health informatics.
What exactly is health informatics? The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) says it “applies principles of computer and information science to the advancement of life sciences research, health professions education, public health, and patient care” to promoting the effective organization, analysis, management, and use of information in health care in support of patient care, public health, teaching, research, administration, and related policy.
Health informatics is where R.N. and M.D. meet IT. Think of it as the common ground where information science and computer science experts intersect and interact with doctors, nurses and health care administrators. It is all about the movement and management, access to and storage of medical records throughout a complex network of systems, specialists and institutions.
“Think of it as a powerful tool in the health professional's tool kit that enables them to stay current and be their best by successfully using innovative technologies,” says Linda Travis Macomber, Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing at the Technology and Health Sciences Center and Lead Faculty for the Master of Science in Health Informatics program (see related article).
Professor Macomber puts it another way. In health care, there has long been a dichotomy between: 1) people who work with people on the frontlines of patient care and 2) people who work with data and machines in IT departments providing invisible, yet no less critical support. They have long existed in two distinct cultures; they speak different jargon and see health care from two different perspectives.
“Informatics is a bridge,” adds Professor Macomber; a connective discipline that utilizes modern technology to greatly extend human reach while preserving the importance of human touch in health care. It is a means toward infusing those who primarily work with computers or data with “bedside manner” while enabling tried and true medical traditions to transition into the 21st Century.
Informatics has its origins in the 1950s and 1960s, and organizations such as the AMIA and the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) have been in existence now for more than 20 years. It hasn’t been until recently however, that Professor Macomber says awareness toward health informatics has evolved from “Informatics? What is that?” to become one of the hot fields in health care employment.
In the past decade, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has created the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to promote the adoption of electronic health records. Health maintenance organizations such as Kaiser Permanente are beginning to promote technical advances such as paperless medical files in their advertisements. In one television commercial, Kaiser paraphrases Joyce Kilmer’s famous poem thusly, “I think that I shall never see, a 62-page medical report as lovely as a tree.”
More significantly, the federal government is investing an estimated $24 billion in incentives to spur the transition to paperless medical systems. These and other technical advances are projected to cut health care costs while increasing the quality of care.
Professor Macomber notes that other professions have enjoyed early and widespread success in embracing and incorporating information science and computer science into their daily operations. In the banking industry for example, ATM cards and online banking have been used for many years.
She counters that the interaction with a physician or a nurse is quite different from an interaction with a loan officer or a teller. Human health and the healthcare ecosystem involve greater complexity, and the consequences of miscommunication are often great and potentially irreversible. Hence, the need for highly educated health care professionals who will specialize in bringing technology to the human level required to meet the quality and standards necessary for treatment of patients with dignity and compassion.
There is a growing emphasis upon health informatics in higher education. AMIA President and CEO Edward Shortliffe, M.D. Ph.D. is calling for medical education to add biomedical and health informatics to the basic disciplines covered in medical school.
National University recently added a Master of Science in Health Informatics program to its curricula (to read more about the new degree offering, click here), and the School of Health and Human Services will soon offer other health informatics-related programs.
"As we strive to meet the increasing demand for a highly educated workforce in the health professions, we will have to create more programs that serve very technically oriented fields," says School of Health and Human Services Dean Michael Lacourse. "This is where there will be an abundance of high-paying jobs in the near future."
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