Personal Health Informatics

This book clarifies consumer and personal health informatics and their relevance to precision medicine and healthcare applications. Personal Health Informatics covers a broad definition of this emerging field, with individuals not simply consuming health but as active participants, researchers and designers in the healthcare ecosystem. The world of health informatics is constantly changing given the ever-increasing variety and volume of health data, care delivery models that shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, new entrants in the ecosystem and the evolving regulatory decision landscape. These changes have increased the importance of the role of patients in research studies for understanding work processes and activities, and the design and implementation of health information systems. Therefore, personal health informatics now provide research tools and protocols to engage within individual contexts when developing solutions, which can improve clinical practice, patient engagement and public health. Personal Health Informatics offers a snapshot of this emerging field, supported by the methodological, practical, legal and ethical perspectives of researchers and practitioners. In addition to being a research reader, this book provides pragmatic insights for practitioners in designing, implementing and evaluating personal health informatics in healthcare settings. It represents an excellent reader for students in all clinical disciplines and biomedical and health informatics to learn from the case studies provided in this emerging field.

Health information technologies are revolutionizing and streamlining healthcare, and uptake continues to rise dramatically. If these technologies are to be effectively implemented, capacity must be built at a regional, national and global level, and the support and involvement of both government and industry will be vital. This book presents the proceedings of the 2017 Information Technology and Communications in Health conference (ITCH 2017), held in Victoria, BC, Canada, in February 2017. The conference considers, from a variety of perspectives, what is required to move the technology forward to real, sustained and widespread use, and the solutions examined range from improvements in usability and training to the need for new and improved design of information systems, user interfaces and interoperable solutions. Government policies, mandates, initiatives and the need for regulation are also explored, as is the requirement for improved interaction between industrial, governmental and academic partners. With its focus on building the next generation of health informatics and the capacity required to deliver better healthcare worldwide, this book will be of interest to all those involved in the provision of healthcare.

Individuals with disabilities, chronic conditions, and functional impairments need a range of services and supports to keep living independently. However, there often is not a strong link between medical care provided in the home and the necessary social services and supports for independent living. Home health agencies and others are rising to the challenges of meeting the needs and demands of these populations to stay at home by exploring alternative models of care and payment approaches, the best use of their workforces, and technologies that can enhance independent living. All of these challenges and opportunities lead to the consideration of how home health care fits into the future health care system overall. On September 30 and October 1, 2014, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council convened a public workshop on the future of home health care. The workshop brought together a spectrum of public and private stakeholders and thought leaders to improve understanding of the current role of Medicare home health care in supporting aging in place and in helping high-risk, chronically ill, and disabled Americans receive health care in their communities. Through presentations and discussion, participants explored the evolving role of Medicare home health care in caring for Americans in the future, including how to integrate Medicare home health care into new models for the delivery of care and the future health care marketplace. The workshop also considered the key policy reforms and investments in workforces, technologies, and research needed to leverage the value of home health care to support older Americans, and research priorities that can help clarify the value of home health care. This summary captures important points raised by the individual speakers and workshop participants.

The practice of modern medicine and biomedical research requires sophisticated information technologies with which to manage patient information, plan diagnostic procedures, interpret laboratory results, and carry out investigations. Biomedical Informatics provides both a conceptual framework and a practical inspiration for this swiftly emerging scientific discipline at the intersection of computer science, decision science, information science, cognitive science, and biomedicine. Now revised and in its third edition, this text meets the growing demand by practitioners, researchers, and students for a comprehensive introduction to key topics in the field. Authored by leaders in medical informatics and extensively tested in their courses, the chapters in this volume constitute an effective textbook for students of medical informatics and its areas of application. The book is also a useful reference work for individual readers needing to understand the role that computers can play in the provision of clinical services and the pursuit of biological questions. The volume is organized so as first to explain basic concepts and then to illustrate them with specific systems and technologies.

Despite its high cost, the US healthcare system produces relatively short life spans, and is wasteful, inefficient and has serious safety and quality issues. While other industries have surmounted similar challenges by transforming themselves through information technology, healthcare lags behind. Major reasons are that our approaches to care delivery and financial incentives were designed for a bygone era. Beyond that the technology offered to practitioners has often been overly expensive, poorly designed, overly proprietary, hard to implement and difficult to use. Spurred by a unique, one-time Federal stimulus and the new mobile, wireless and cloud technologies now available, this landscape is rapidly changing. To succeed going forward practitioners, and those interested in entering the field, need to understand the new driving forces and have a basic understanding of contemporary clinical informatics. Practitioners, in particular, need to understand the alternative technologies and approaches available for their use in individual patient care and more continuous management of their chronic disease patients. To efficiently meet these needs, this book provides an introduction to the rationale for care transformation through clinical informatics; its application to patient care outside of hospitals; and a look at its future. Key points are illustrated throughout by actual examples of open source and commercial health IT products and services. While written with practitioners and students entering the field of clinical informatics in mind, the book eschews technical terminology and is easily accessible by the lay reader not proficient in clinical medicine or information technology.

The first resource of its kind, Introduction to Health Informatics examined the effects of health informatics on healthcare practitioners, patients, and policies from a distinctly Canadian perspective. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect current trends and innovations in health informatics and includes new figures, charts, tables, and web links. In this text, author Christo El Morr presents the subject of health informatics in an accessible, concise way, breaking the topic down into 12 chapters divided into 3 sections. Each chapter includes objectives, key terms, which are defined in a full glossary at the end of the text, and a “Test Your Understanding” section for student review. The second edition also features 15% brand new content, with a full chapter on analytics, machine learning, and AI for health, as well as information on virtual care, mHealth apps, COVID-19 responses, adoption of EHR across provinces, clinical informatics, and precisions medicine. Packed with pedagogical features and updated instructor supplements, this text is a vital resource for students, instructors, and practitioners in health informatics, health management, and health policy. FEATURES: - Takes a uniquely Canadian perspective on health informatics - Contains 15 percent new content on topics such as virtual care, mHealth apps, COVID-19 responses, adoption of EHR across provinces, clinical informatics, and precisions medicine - Updated instructor supplements, including PowerPoint slides and a test bank

Health Informatics (HI) focuses on the application of information technology (IT) to the field of medicine to improve individual and population healthcare delivery, education and research. This extensively updated fifth edition reflects the current knowledge in Health Informatics and provides learning objectives, key points, case studies and references. Topics include: HI Overview; Healthcare Data, Information, and Knowledge; Electronic Health Records, Practice Management Systems; Health Information Exchange; Data Standards; Architectures of Information Systems;Health Information Privacy and Security; HI Ethics; Consumer HI; Mobile Technology; Online Medical Resources; Search Engines; Evidence-Based Medicine and Clinical Practice Guidelines; Disease Management and Registries; Quality Improvement Strategies; Patient Safety; Electronic Prescribing; Telemedicine; Picture Archiving and Communication Systems; Bioinformatics; Public HI; E-Research. Available as a printed copy and E-book.

"This book will be a terrific introduction to the field of clinical IT and clinical informatics" -- Kevin Johnson "Dr. Braunstein has done a wonderful job of exploring a number of key trends in technology in the context of the transformations that are occurring in our health care system" -- Bob Greenes "This insightful book is a perfect primer for technologists entering the health tech field." -- Deb Estrin "This book should be read by everyone.​" -- David Kibbe This book provides care providers and other non-technical readers with a broad, practical overview of the changing US healthcare system and the contemporary health informatics systems and tools that are increasingly critical to its new financial and clinical care paradigms. US healthcare delivery is dramatically transforming and informatics is at the center of the changes. Increasingly care providers must be skilled users of informatics tools to meet federal mandates and succeed under value-based contracts that demand higher quality and increased patient satisfaction but at lower cost. Yet, most have little formal training in these systems and technologies. Providers face system selection issues with little unbiased and insightful information to guide them. Patient engagement to promote wellness, prevention and improved outcomes is a requirement of Meaningful Use Stage 2 and is increasingly supported by mobile devices, apps, sensors and other technologies. Care providers need to provide guidance and advice to their patients and know how to incorporated as they generate into their care. The one-patient-at-a-time care model is being rapidly supplemented by new team-, population- and public health-based models of care. As digital data becomes ubiquitous, medicine is changing as research based on that data reveals new methods for earlier diagnosis, improved treatment and disease management and prevention. This book is clearly written, up-to-date and uses real world examples extensively to explain the tools and technologies and illustrate their practical role and potential impact on providers, patients, researchers, and society as a whole.