Jokes abound about illegible physician handwriting, but those stories are losing their relevance in the new field of health informatics. Doctors simply have to know how to type their notes onto a computer keyboard. In some cases, that isn’t even necessary; medical instruments transmit data to the computer system. If you have visited a clinic lately, you are probably familiar with some of these. There are many facets to the field and it is rapidly transforming healthcare around the world.
Definition of Health Informatics
Health informatics is a multidisciplinary field that uses health information technology to improve health care via any combination of higher quality, higher efficiency and new opportunities. In more common language, it is a new field that uses innovations in technology to improve healthcare in its delivery of services, storage of data and financial aspects such as billing. It is multidisciplinary because the technology employs data and tools from information science, computer science, social science, behavioral science management science and others disciplines.
What Does it Involve?
The technology is mainly computer systems and software programs, according to the Wise Geek. These systems rely on input from people who have knowledge and experience in the field of medicine as well as computer savvy. The goal of the system is to build a standard approach to the storage and accessibility of healthcare data that makes it available to people qualified to access it, even on an international level. One of the foundational components of the technology is the electronic health record. This is digitally-stored data about patient health that includes not only physician notes, but other interventions and their outcomes, pharmacological information and even billing data. The system transmits data to and from people, machines such as x-ray and scanning equipment, machines that collect and interpret vital signs and other medical tools, and computers, even to hand-held devices like phones and tablets. Transferring and storing this data are professionals with advanced computer degrees and medical specializations. Medical informatics has led to the creation of new degrees in universities worldwide. In the US, the Affordable Care Act mandated doctors to utilize the technology at least for federally-reimbursed programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
What are the Challenges of Informatics in Health Care?
The biggest challenge would seem the less involved, but it has to do with human nature; the system depends upon universal usage and some health care professionals are slow to make the transition away from manual input of information into paper records stored locally. Another problem is in the security of the information. The rate at which companies like Target and Amazon are being “hacked” leads naturally to concerns about protecting sensitive personal data, including social security and financial information, in health informatics. Another challenge to this young industry is achieving a universal code of ethics that dictates who can access the data, and for what reasons, as well as who has the right to grant that access. Perhaps the hardest challenge to meet is training and equipping enough professionals to handle the exploding field.
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Salaries in medical IT fields can be in the lower $100,000s. Specialties are virtually limitless so the field allows for diversity in careers. In addition, the field of health informatics is constantly growing and changing, so there seems to be no lag in the opportunities it presents for the future.
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