Health Informatics: A Systems Perspective

by Gordon Brown

Overview

Historically, informatics was considered as a technology for automating clinical decision making and processes. This book views informatics as a transforming technology, one that alters the structure of clinical processes and broader health organizations. It explores the use of health information technology from a systems perspective. The traditional three-pronged informatics model—cellular, clinical, and population—is expanded to include dynamic systems, which adds to and alters previous conceptions.

This text integrates the medical, nursing, and healthcare IT professions. Its primary audience is graduate and professional students.

Fifteen evidenced-based cases are used through the text to illustrate each chapter’s concepts. Each chapter includes learning objectives, presents key concepts, and discussion questions.

Topics covered include:

The application and function of electronic medical records The importance of concept-based controlled biomedical vocabularies How to identify different e-health platforms How to recognize the technical safeguards required by the HIPAA Security Rule How information technology can change the role of the patient

Instructor Resources: PowerPoint slides of the exhibits and answers/talking points for the discussion questions and case studies. To see a sample, click on the Instructor Resource sample tab above.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781567934359
Publisher:	Health Administration Press
Publication date:	08/01/2012
Series:	AUPHA/HAP Book
Edition description:	None
Pages:	1
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Gordon D. Brown, PhD, is professor emeritus in the Department of Health Management and Informatics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, where he served as department chair for 28 years. He has worked as a consultant on health system development and global health systems and as a scientist for the World Health Organization. Dr. Brown was also chair of the Commission on Accreditation for Health Management Education and a founding director and faculty member of the National Center for Managed Health Care Administration. He is the author of numerous articles and books. He has held faculty appointments at the Pennsylvania State University and the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. He earned his MHA and PhD degrees from the University of Iowa.

Books published by Health Administration Press:

Health Informatics: A Systems Perspective, Second Edition

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Frank R Ames, Ph.D.(Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine)
Description: This is a graduate-level introduction to health information systems that challenges contemporary conceptualizations of informatics, characterizes information technology as "a disruptive technology and thus one that is inherently transformational," and offers a realistic, forward-looking discussion of concepts, issues, and applications.
Purpose: The authors, writing from a systems perspective, address the major topics in the field of health informatics and show how information technology can transform clinical processes and healthcare organizations and systems. It is designed for use as a textbook, as evidenced by its inclusion of discussion questions and by the teaching resources that are available online for instructors. However, it also provides good reading for professional development beyond the classroom.
Audience: The book is written for graduate students and professionals, but its audience is not limited to those specializing in health information systems management. The content is transdisciplinary and relevant for healthcare students and professionals in a variety of disciplines, including physicians, nurses, and administrators, as well as those working in information technology, epidemiology, and health policy.
Features: With chapters that uniformly move from learning objectives and key concepts through an introduction, definition, explanation, and conclusions, to discussion questions and case studies, the book introduces the fundamentals and issues of health systems informatics: controlled vocabulary, electronic medical records, clinical decision making, healthcare organization, predictive analytics, e-health, genomics, privacy and security, enterprise technology, and future prospects. It concludes with a glossary, references, and subject index. Instructional resources that are available to teachers online include a PowerPoint file with exhibits from the book and a helpful guide to discussion questions.
Assessment: This is an excellent work. The breadth and depth of material is appropriate for graduate students, explanations are lucid, and case studies are realistic and interesting. Most important, however, are the rich and accurate information and the perspectives of the authors, who are simultaneously realistic and optimistic, apply systems theory, and see the transforming potential of information technology. This book is more substantial than the brief overview, Health Informatics in the Cloud, Braunstein (Springer, 2012), which addresses the same topics and also is forward looking, and it is less detailed, but more up to date, than Health Care Informatics: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Englebardt and Nelson (Mosby, 2002).

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