The discipline of medical informatics is
still relatively young in its existence when compared to other medical disciplines. However, its earlier roots which involve
approaches for the systematic processing of data, information, and knowledge in
both medicine and healthcare can be dated back at least 50 years (Haux,
2010). The evolution of the discipline
of health informatics development coincides with the invention and within only
a few years of the rapid dissemination of digital computers and the development
of information and communication tools that were based on these computers (Haux,
2010).
Within the last couple of decades
societies all over the world and medicine and health care in particular, have
been dramatically changed and through this change health care has not only been
impacted but also improved. For
instance, it is very difficult to imagine how diagnostic procedures were
completed without the use of diagnostic imaging tools. It also hard to imagine how medication was effectively
prescribed without software that checks to ensure there are no medication
interactions.
According to Haux (2010), looking back
just 50 years to 1959 when Ledley and Lusted published a landmark paper that appeared
in the publication, Science and detailed
diagnostic decision-making. The paper “reviewed
methods for handling decision-making under risk and uncertainty, and providing
the first comprehensive discussion needed for subsequent work on computer-based
medical decision-support” (p. 601).
Looking back just 10 years, the International Medical Informatics
Association endorsed and published the first international recommendations on
education in medical informatics (Haux, 2010).
In its early days, many felt that medical informatics were considered as
a nice-to-have but not a need-to-have discipline, both in biomedicine and health
sciences and computer sciences.
In April 2004, health informatics took
on a new role in health care when President George Bush unveiled a proposal to
ensure electronic medical records for all Americans within 10 years. He went so far as to call for Congress to
include $100 million in the fiscal
2005 budget in order to invest in health information technology.
In 2009, President Obama
took health informatics to level that it is today. In an effort to revive the economy and improve
health care Obama “proposed a massive effort to modernize health care by making
all health records standardized and electronic” (Goldman, 2009, para. 1). The
first piece of legislation that President Obama passed after becoming President
of the United States was the Affordable Care Act and the HITECH Act which has led
health informatics to the level that it is today.
Health information technology (HIT) systems have the
potential to improve health care outcomes and the quality of health care by
making health information quickly available which is critical in both public
health and the individual patient levels.
“For instance, population surveillance for and monitoring of infectious
disease outbreaks requires real time clinical information” (Bardach, Huang,
Brand, & Hsu, 2009, p. 2).
References
Bardach, N. S., Huang, J., Brand, R., & Hsu, J. (2009).
Evolving health information technology and the timely availability of visit
diagnoses from ambulatory visits: A natural experiment in an integrated
delivery system. BMC Medical Informatics
and Decision Making, 35(9), 1-9. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-9-35
Beckley, E. T. (2004). A healthy debate: Electronic
medical records. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=AHA/PubsNewsArticle/data/0406HHN_InBox_Technology&domain=HHNMAG
Goldman, D. (2009). Obama’s
big idea: Digital health records. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/12/technology/stimulus_health_care/
Haux, R. (2010). Medical informatics: Past, present,
future. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 79, p. 599-610. doi:
10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2010.06.003
