MED INF 403 Introduction to Medical Informatics
Course Description
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The course is an introductory survey of fundamentals of information technology as applied to health care. Topics center on technology’s impact on the patient level, individual health care provider, and hospital level. It focuses on clinical data and physician data. The use of data to measure outcomes and performance is explored. Decision support, system integration, and educational applications is also discussed. The course also explores emerging and new uses of technology.
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Instructor: David Levine, MD
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Learning Goals
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The goals of this course are to:
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Text
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Shortliffe, E. H., & Cimino, J. J. (2006) Biomedical informatics: Computer
applications in health care and biomedicine (3rd ed.). New York, NY:
Springer.[ISBN-13: 978-0387289861]
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This book focuses on the role of computers in the provision of medical services. It provides both a conceptual framework and a practical approach for the implementation and management of IT used to improve the delivery of health care. Inspired by a Stanford University training program, it fills the need for a high quality text in computers and medicine. It meets the growing demand by practitioners, researchers, and students for a comprehensive introduction to key topics in the field. Completely revised and expanded, this work includes several new chapters filled with brand new material.
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My take away from this course:
"Medical information science is the science of using system-analytic tools . . . to develop procedures (algorithms) for management, process control, decision making and scientific analysis of medical knowledge."[Ted Shortliffe]: The science of biomedical computing. Med Inform 1984;9:185-93.
Medical informatics has both distinctly applied features and more fundamental characteristics. Just as medicine itself is multidisciplinary, so is medical informatics. The main reason for this convergence of disciplines is that, in principle, medical informatics deals with the whole field of medicine and health care. Blois summarized the heterogeneity of medical science quite eloquently and related the multidisciplinary nature of medicine directly to the basis of medical informatics: In medical informatics we develop and assess methods and systems for the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of patient data with the help of knowledge that is obtained in scientific research.
Computers are the vehicles used to realize these goals. In medical informatics, we deal with the entire domain of medicine and health care, from computer-based patient records to image processing and from primary care practices to hospitals and regions of health care. Some areas of the field are relatively fundamental; others have an applied character. The challenge in developing methods and systems in medical informatics is that once the systems have been made operational for one medical specialty, they can also be transferred to some other specialty."
"Medical information science is the science of using system-analytic tools . . . to develop procedures (algorithms) for management, process control, decision making and scientific analysis of medical knowledge."[Ted Shortliffe]: The science of biomedical computing. Med Inform 1984;9:185-93.
Medical informatics has both distinctly applied features and more fundamental characteristics. Just as medicine itself is multidisciplinary, so is medical informatics. The main reason for this convergence of disciplines is that, in principle, medical informatics deals with the whole field of medicine and health care. Blois summarized the heterogeneity of medical science quite eloquently and related the multidisciplinary nature of medicine directly to the basis of medical informatics: In medical informatics we develop and assess methods and systems for the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of patient data with the help of knowledge that is obtained in scientific research.
Computers are the vehicles used to realize these goals. In medical informatics, we deal with the entire domain of medicine and health care, from computer-based patient records to image processing and from primary care practices to hospitals and regions of health care. Some areas of the field are relatively fundamental; others have an applied character. The challenge in developing methods and systems in medical informatics is that once the systems have been made operational for one medical specialty, they can also be transferred to some other specialty."