1. Medical Informatics Basics
Lection 1

2. Basic Questions Medical Informatics Definition
Medical Informatics as the Scientific Area
Medical Informatics Areas
Aspects of the Medical Informatics fields
Clinical informatics
Biomedical informatics
Bioinformatics
Public health informatics
Nursing informatics
Dental informatics
Medical Cybernetics
Information Systems examples

3. 1. Medical Informatics (A)
Medical information science is the science of using system-analytic tools to develop procedures (algorithms) for management, process control, decision making and scientific analysis of medical knowledge.
(E.H. Shortliffe, The science of biomedical computing. Medical Informatics 1984;9: )

4. 1. Medical Informatics (B)
Medical Informatics comprises the theoretical and practical aspects of information processing and communication, based on knowledge and experience derived from processes in medicine and health care.
(J.H. van Bemmel, The structure of medical informatics. Medical Informatics 1984;9: )

5. 1. Medical Informatics (C)
In medical informatics we develop and assess methods and systems for the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of patient data with the help of knowledge that is obtained in scientific research.
(J.H. van Bemmel and M.A. Musen, Handbook of Medical Informatics, Springer Verlag, 1997.)

6. 1. Medical Informatics (D)
It is the intersection of information science, computer science and health care. It deals with the resources, devices and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of information in health and biomedicine.
(Wikipedia, 2008.)

7. 1. The Informatics
Informatics (academic field), a broad academic field encompassing human-computer interaction, information science, information technology, algorithms, and social science
Computer science, the study of complex systems, information and computation using applied mathematics, electrical engineering and software engineering techniques.
Information science, the study of the processing, management, and retrieval of information
Information technology, the study, design, development, implementation, support, or management of computer-based information systems

8. 1. Medical Informatics is Multidisciplinary
It is applies methodologies developed in multiple areas of scientific endeavor to many different tasks
In turn, it often gives rise to new, more general methodologies that enrich these scientific disciplines

9. 1. Medical Informatics is Multidisciplinary

10. 2. Example of Scientific Areas Relevant to Medical Informatics
Medicine/ Biology
Mathematics
Information Systems
Computer Science
Statistics
Decision Analysis
Economics/Health Care Policy
Psychology

11. 2. Example of Scientific Areas Relevant to Medical Informatics

12. 2. The Diagnostic-Therapeutic Cycle, Simplified View
Patient
1.Data collection:
-History
-Physical examinations
-Laboratory and other tests
2.Decision
making
3.Planning
Information
Diagnosis/assessment
Therapy plan
Data

13. 2. Levels of Automated Support

14. 3. Examples of Medical Informatics Areas
Hospital information systems
Electronic medical records & medical vocabularies
Laboratory information systems
Pharmaceutical information systems
Radiological (imaging) information systems
Patient monitoring systems
Clinical decision-support systems
Diagnosis/interpretation
Therapy/management
Bioinformatics: Closely related tasks/methods

15. 3. Examples of Medical Informatics Areas

16. 4. Aspects of the Medical Informatics fields
Architectures for electronic medical records and other health information systems
Decision support systems in healthcare, including clinical decision support systems
Standards (e.g. DICOM, HL7) and integration profiles to facilitate the exchange of information between healthcare information systems
Controlled medical vocabularies (CMVs) such as the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine, Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT), used to allow a standard, accurate exchange of data content between systems

17. 4. Aspects of the Medical Informatics fields

18. 5. Clinical informatics It is a sub-field of medical informatics.
It is a combination of information science, computer science, and clinical science designed to assist in the management and processing of data, information and knowledge to support the practice and delivery of clinical care.
(Shortliffe and Perreault, Medical Informatics: Computing applications in health care and biomedicine)

19. 6. Biomedical informatics
It is concerned with the study and application of information technology and computer science as well as decision making, human problem solving, cognitive science, standards, policies, and human factors in the practice of biomedical science, medicine and healthcare and is most commonly used in this way in the USA.

20. 7. Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry, and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level.

21. 8. Public Health Informatics
Public Health Informatics has been defined as the systematic application of information and computer science and technology to public health practice, research, and learning.
Major tasks:
Collection of public health data.
Storage of public health data.
Analysis of public health data.

22. 9. Nursing informatics (A)
It is a specialty of Health care informatics which deals with the support of nursing by information systems in delivery, documentation, administration and evaluation of patient care and prevention of diseases.
(Wikipedia, 2008)

23. 9. Nursing informatics (B)
It is a specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, and knowledge in nursing practice.
(American Nurses Association's Scope and Standards for Nursing Informatics Practice, 2006)

24. 10. Dental informatics
Dental informatics is the application of computer and information science to improve dental practice, research, education and management.
It can be considered a subset of medical informatics and biomedical informatics.
It improves patient care by improving efficiency and effectiveness in different areas of a common dental practice:
administration;
clinical care;
charting records;
patient education.

25. 11. Medical Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory.
Concepts studied by cyberneticists include, but are not limited to: learning, cognition, adaption, social control, emergence, communication, efficiency, efficacy and interconnectivity. These concepts are studied by other subjects such as engineering and biology, but in cybernetics these are removed from the context of the individual organism or device.

26. 11. Medical Cybernetics
Pure cybernetics studies systems of control as a concept, attempting to discover the basic principles underlying such things as:
Artificial intelligence
Robotics
Computer Vision
Control systems
Emergence
Learning organization
Computer science directly applies the concepts of cybernetics to the control of devices and the analysis of information.
Decision support system
Cellular automaton
Simulation

27. 11. Medical Cybernetics
Cybernetics in biology is the study of cybernetic systems present in biological organisms, primarily focusing on how animals adapt to their environment, and how information in the form of genes is passed from generation to generation:
Bioengineering
Biocybernetics
Bionics
Homeostasis
Medical cybernetics
Synthetic Biology

28. 11. Medical Cybernetics
Medical Cybernetics is a field of applied cybernetics which utilizes the concepts of cybernetics to medical research and practice. It covers an emerging working program for the application of systems- and communications-theory, connectionism and decision theory on biomedical research and health related questions. Topics:
Systems Theory in medical sciences (searching for and modelling of physiological dynamics).
Medical information and Communication Theory (mathematically describe signalling processes and information storage in different physiological layers)
Connectionism (describe information processing in neural networks)
Medical Decision Theory (gather evidence based foundations for decision making in the clinical setting )

29. 12. Information systems – example
Electronic health record (EHR) with image and document links.

30. 12. Information systems – example
Sample patient record view from an image-based electronic health record (VistA).

31. 12. Information systems – example

32. 12. Information systems – example
A PACS allows to store volumic exams and to reconstruct 3D images

33. Conclusion Medical Cybernetics Medical Informatics Definition
Medical Informatics as the Scientific Area
Medical Informatics Areas
Aspects of the Medical Informatics fields
Clinical informatics
Biomedical informatics
Bioinformatics
Public health informatics
Nursing informatics
Dental informatics
Medical Cybernetics
Information Systems examples