About

Welcome

Welcome to the 8th Edition of Health Informatics - Practical Guide. The goal of this textbook is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the field of health informatics (also known as biomedical and health informatics or just plain informatics) for students. The book can also serve as a current update for those who are already practitioners. As in any professional field, there is a knowledge base and history of scientific progress in informatics that informs current practice.

The impetus for this book came from Robert Hoyt, MD, who served as the lead Editor for the first seven editions. In preparing the seventh edition, Dr. Hoyt engaged me as a Co-Editor, with the plan for me to become the Editor of the 8th edition, and hopefully beyond. Dr. Hoyt and his wife Dr. Ann Yoshihashi have been great mentors in the process of putting a book like this together. As with the previous editions, the book will be available in print and ebook formats.

This book is aimed at those who wish to learn about the field of biomedical and health informatics. The content is almost completely redone from previous editions and roughly follows a course I have taught for three decades to about 5000 students in a graduate course at Oregon Health & Science University, the American Medical Informatics Association 10x10 ("ten by ten") program, and a number of other derivative courses for medical students, graduate students, and health IT professionals. I have engaged a variety of other authors for many of the chapters to give additional expertise and perspective. This edition of the book is completely rewritten from earlier editions, reflecting the profound change and progress in the field.

Table of Contents

The chapters of the book include:

  1. Introduction to Biomedical and Health Informatics

  2. A Short History of Biomedical and Health Informatics

  3. Computing Concepts for Biomedicine and Health

  4. Electronic Health Records

  5. Standards and Interoperability

  6. Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

  7. Clinical Decision Support

  8. Natural Language Processing

  9. Safety, Quality, and Value

  10. Health Information Exchange (HIE)

  11. EHR System Selection and Implementation

  12. Telemedicine and Telehealth

  13. Privacy and Security

  14. Information Retrieval (Search)

  15. Clinical Research Informatics

  16. Translational Bioinformatics

  17. Nursing Informatics

  18. Consumer Health Informatics

  19. Public Health Informatics

  20. Evidence-Based Medicine

  21. Imaging Informatics

  22. Ethical Issues in Health Informatics

  23. Human-Computer Interaction

Instructor Materials

An instructor resource is available for those who teach college and university courses with the book. You must have a .edu or similar email, and provide a course syllabus. For more information, email the author.

Errata

A list of errata in the book is available.

Editors and Authors
Editor

William Hersh, MD, FACP, FACMI, FAMIA, FIAHSI

Professor

Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology

School of Medicine

Oregon Health & Science University

Portland, OR, USA

Managing Editor

Kate Fultz Hollis, MS, MBI, FAMIA

Informatician

Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology

School of Medicine

Oregon Health & Science University

Portland, OR, USA

Chapter Authors

Alex A.T. Bui, PhD

Professor, Departments of Radiological Sciences, Bioengineering & Bioinformatics

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Harry B. Burke, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine

Chief, Section of Safety, Quality, and Value

Director, DHA-USU Patient Safety and Quality Academic Collaborative

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Bethesda, MD, USA

Hugo O. Campos

Participant Partner and Community Advisory Board member, All of Us Research Program

Oakland, CA, USA

Bimal R. Desai, MD, MBI, FAAP, FAMIA

Chief Health Informatics Officer

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Brian E. Dixon, MPA, PhD, FACMI, FAMIA, FHIMSS

Associate Professor

Department of Epidemiology

Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indianapolis, IN, USA

Center for Biomedical Informatics, Regenstrief Institute

Indianapolis, IN, USA

Michelle R. Hribar, PhD, FAMIA

Associate Professor

Medical Informatics & Ophthalmology

Oregon Health & Science University

Portland, Oregon, USA

William Hsu, PhD

Associate Professor, Departments of Radiological Sciences, Bioinformatics, & Bioengineering

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Susan C. Hull, MSN, RN-BC, NEA-BC, FAMIA

Principal, Consumer Health Informatics

MITRE Labs, Health Innovation Center

The MITRE Corporation

McLean, VA, USA

Elizabeth Hutchins, MD

Medical Informatics Home Area

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Robert A Jenders, MD, MS, FACP, FACMI, FHL7, FAMIA

Senior Associate Director, Clinical and Translational Science Institute

Professor of Medicine

University of California, Los Angeles

Co-Director, Center for Biomedical Informatics

Professor of Medicine

Charles Drew University

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Michelle R. Jones, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Biomedical Science

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Katherine K. Kim, PhD, MPH, MBA

Principal, Consumer Health Informatics and Health Science

MITRE Corporation, Health Innovation Center

McLean, VA

Adjunct Associate Professor

University of California Davis, School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences

Davis, CA, USA

Ruowang Li, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Computational Biomedicine

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Ken Masters, PhD

Associate Professor: Medical Informatics

Sultan Qaboos University

Sultanate of Oman

Jason H. Moore, PhD, FACMI, FIAHSI, FASA

Professor and Chair

Department of Computational Biomedicine

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Thomas H Payne, MD

Professor of Medicine

Department of Biomedical Informatics & Medical Education

University of Washington School of Medicine

Seattle, WA, USA

John Rasmussen

Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer

Syneos Health

Morrisville, NC, USA

Kirk Roberts, PhD

Associate Professor

School of Biomedical Informatics

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Houston, TX, USA

Sayantani Sarkar, PhD

Post-doctoral Scholar

University of California Davis, School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences

Davis, CA, USA

Sony Tuteja, PharmD, BCPS, FAHA

Research Assistant Professor

Department of Medicine

Perelman School of Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Anurag Verma, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Genetics

Perelman School of Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Tamara J. Winden PhD, FAMIA, FHIMSS

Vice President

Sanford Research and Innovation

Sanford Health

Sioux Falls, SD, USA

Al Rahrooh

Medical Informatics Home Area

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Los Angeles, CA, USA

Anil Yadav

Department of Bioengineering

UCLA Samueli School of Engineering

Los Angeles, CA, USA