The Social and Technical Context of Health Informatics Training

Overview of Health Informatics

In this module, you will be given an introduction to the course and its foundational concepts After providing examples of health IT in the contexts of patients, providers, and populations—the three contexts we always return to—we articulate the drivers that motivate developments in health IT and informatics We then provide the core definitions of key terms (like “health IT” and “informatics”) and introduce the core framework for your work in this course, the Informatics Stack

World, Organization, Roles, Function

In this module, we start our journey down the Stack to explain the world of informatics and health IT We explore the top four levels of the Stack (World, Organization, Roles, and Functions), and then proceed to discuss new US medical-care (“World”) policies that drive health care Organizations to change practice, so they can accomplish their core Functions We also discuss the history of health IT in relation to such policies in the past We begin a course-long discussion of interoperability (which occurs at each level of the Stack), and privacy/confidentiality/security We end with an explication of methods used to Evaluate whether an IT project has achieved the Organizational goals set for that project

Workflow, Information System, Modules

In this module, we continue the journey, starting with the role of needs, requirements, and specifications We then turn to how workflow issues are turned into requirements and how information systems, built to satisfy those requirements, are assembled We close with the cautionary notes of how poorly built systems harm the very workflows they were designed to improve

Data, Information, Knowledge, Technology

This module concludes our journey with discussions of Data, Information, Knowledge, and Technology Regarding data, we discuss their sources and types and provide examples We go on to explain differences between information and data, and between knowledge and information Standards are most important at this level, and we discuss the exchange of text and imaging data Regarding technology, we use the Hype Cycle as a way for you to keep track of what new technologies are doing what and when We close with a framework for thinking about careers in health IT and informatics