Week 1: Health Informatics Concepts Flashcards
What is health informatics?
application of information technology to facilitate the creation and use of health-related data, information, and knowledge
What are some other terms for health informatics?
- more commonly referred to as eHealth in Canada
- digital health
- electronic health
note: NOT telehealth
What topics does eHealth cover? (5)
- clinical informatics (EMR, pharmacy systems, decision support tools)
- bioinformatics (personalized medicine)
- public health (surveillance and tracking)
- educational tools (simulated patient cases, online cases)
- consumer health informatics (patient access to information, web-based resources, social media)
What are the different stages of information hierarchy?
(from top to bottom of pyramid)
- wisdom
- knowledge
- information
- data
Information Hierarchy
What is wisdom?
use of knowledge to make intelligent decisions
- ie. a declining hemoglobin suggests an acute bleed
Information Hierarchy
What is knowledge?
information that is justifiably true
- ie. a declining hemoglobin suggests bone marrow dysfunction
Information Hierarchy
What is information?
data with meaningful facts that can lead to a conclusion
- ie. 10 loose stools in a day
Information Hierarchy
What is data?
observations or symbols
- ie. the number 10
Which two stages of information hierarchy are part of eHealth?
- information
- data
What is level 1 data?
paper documents
What is level 2 data?
unstructured, viewable electronic data
- ie. scanned paper documents, images
What is level 3 data?
structured, viewable electronic data
- ie. data that is retrievable but not useable between different computers
What is level 4 data?
structured, computable electronic data
- ie. data that is retrievable and accessible to share between computers
Health data should ideally. . . (3)
- be documented as a byproduct of care
- entered only once (and verified if needed)
- used and re-used as helpful information for sharing reports, real-time decision support, administrative reports, research
What are the 5 sources of eHealth data?
- electronic health records
- personal health records
- claims data
- home monitoring
- data warehouses
Describe the flow of eHealth data.
clinical data, financial data, administrative data → data warehouses → analytics
What is the issue with data warehouses?
siloed
- ie. SDM doesn’t share info with LD
- ie. Dr. A and B don’t share all information (consult note instead of raw notes)
What are the 4 advantages of eHealth data?
- increase efficiency in work
- improved and standardize patient care (and therefore patient health outcomes)
- lower costs
- detect trends in sales/prescribing
note: not all are achievable, depending on implementation
What are the 4 disadvantages of eHealth data?
- mismatch of what we need vs. what is available
- technology advancing faster than practice/guidelines/workflow can accommodate
- requires some computer literacy
- not funded or subsidized
What eHealth data is available? (4)
- online drug monographs
- interaction checkers
- smartphone apps
- subscription services
What does the health system need?
equal (or improved) wisdom among all clinicians
What are some barriers to eHealth? (5)
- inadequate time, information, expertise/people, money/return on investment, interoperability between systems
- data rich but information poor
- changes in workflow
- individual resistance to change
- privacy concerns
