What’s Next
AbstractBefore taking a look at a possible future, let’s quickly review where we’ve been and where we are today.
View ArticleEmpowering the Patient
AbstractMany years ago I spent an entire day in a crowded hotel room at a world informatics conference in New Orleans. The topic was who owns the digital medical record or, more specifically, how and...
View ArticleClinical Practice
AbstractIn this chapter we’ll see how the technical concepts discussed in Chapter 3 can be combined into a workable electronic health record system in the typical provider practice. I’ll use as...
View ArticleIncreasing Knowledge
AbstractGoing all the way back to Larry Weed it has been a goal of health informatics that clinical data from electronic records could be aggregated, analyzed and visualized in ways that would...
View ArticlePatient Engagement and Empowerment
AbstractYears ago, my professor told me that, as a practicing physician, I would occasionally see chronic disease patients for a few minutes and think that what I did during their visit would make all...
View ArticleEHR Adoption and Meaningful Use
AbstractAs we’ve seen, there is a disconnect between what is required to successfully manage the chronic diseases that drive most healthcare costs and the structure and incentives of the U.S....
View ArticleEHR Design and Usability Challenges
AbstractIn the 1950s the clinical data in medical records of patients in the United States were mostly recorded in a natural, English-language, textual form. … Such patients’ data were generally...
View ArticleHealth Big Data and Analytics
AbstractAs the quote from the IOM conveys, our ability to generate scientific knowledge has outstripped the ability of healthcare providers to absorb, integrate and use that knowledge in daily patient...
View ArticleTechnologies for Sharing Health Information
AbstractWe know that coordination among the many providers who care for a patient with chronic disease is of paramount importance in improving quality and efficiency. In the age of the Internet, in...
View ArticleInteroperability Standards
AbstractTo be maximally useful in care coordination, standardized data—typically along with other nonstandardized data such as free text notes—is often packaged into standardized clinical documents and...
View ArticleAggregating Data
AbstractHere in the U.S., physicians who aren’t employed by or affiliated with a health system that makes the choice for them, can select any EHR—and there are literally hundreds from which to choose....
View ArticleTechnologies to Assure Privacy, Security and Trust
AbstractWe’ve repeatedly emphasized that successful management of chronic diseases in our highly specialized and fragmented healthcare system requires digital data that can be shared to coordinate...
View ArticleThe Current Situation
AbstractGiven current EHR adoption levels and provider survey data, I assume that many, if not most, healthcare provider readers of this book are using EHRs, may well be frustrated with them in one...
View ArticleData Standards
AbstractData and interoperability standards are the virtually ubiquitous plumbing that underlies all contemporary health informatics systems and tools. Given the complexity of healthcare it should not...
View ArticlePopulation and Public Health
AbstractSo far in this book we’ve been looking at technologies and issues almost exclusively through the lens of the traditional one-patient-at-a-time approach to care delivery. It is likely that this...
View ArticleUnique Complexity
AbstractHealthcare providers are often so immersed in the highly unusual U.S. healthcare system that they take it for granted and accept its extraordinary complexity as the norm. In fact, no other...
View ArticleIntroduction
AbstractThis book is about health informatics—the applications of information technology to healthcare delivery. This is distinct from bioinformatics, a related field with which it is often confused;...
View ArticleThe Road Ahead
AbstractSo, we’ve now reached the end of the story … at least the part that has played out so far. We began with the nature and problems of our healthcare system and the key role that chronic disease...
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