This document provides an overview of health informatics and dental informatics. It defines health informatics, medical informatics, and dental informatics. It discusses the history and development of the fields, including the introduction of computers into medicine from the 1960s onward. It describes the scope of health informatics and dental informatics, covering areas like information science, computer science, and cognitive science. Finally, it discusses current issues in health informatics research, such as data acquisition, storage and retrieval, knowledge representation, and linking disparate systems.

1. Overview and introduction
to health informatics &
Dental Informatics (DI)
Dr Ebtissam M. Al-Madi

2. Overview and introduction to
health informatics & Dental
Informatics (DI)
– Different definitions of Health informatics,
medical informatics and Dental informatics
– History of Health and Informatics
– The discipline of Health Informatics
– Scope of Health informatics
– Scope of Dental Informatics
– Uses of health & dental informatics
– Current issues in health informatics

3. Different definitions of Health informatics, medical informatics and Dental
informatics
HEALTH & MEDICAL
INFORMATICS

4. "Medical informatics is the application of
computers, communications and
information technology and systems to
all fields of medicine ; medical care,
medical education and medical
research.“
– definition by MF Collen (MEDINFO '80,
Tokyo, later extended)

5. Medical Informatics
"Medical informatics is a developing body of knowledge
and a set of techniques concerning the organizational
management of information in support of medical
research, education, and patient care.... Medical
informatics combines medical science with several
technologies and disciplines in the information and
computer sciences and provides methodologies by which
these can contribute to better use of the medical
knowledge base and ultimately to better medical care.“
– Definition by Asso. of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) 1986

6. Health Informatics
• Health informatics, Health care informatics or
medical informatics 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.
• Health informatics tools include not only computers
but also clinical guidelines, formal medical
terminologies, and information and communication
systems.
• It is applied to the areas of nursing, clinical care,
dentistry, pharmacy, public health and (bio)medical
research.

7. Analysis of definition
Patient Care
Research Education
Practical Goal: to provide better health
care

8. Origin of term "Medical
Informatics"
English
Russian first
informatik appeared
a 1968 in 1970s
French
informatique
de medecine
1968

9. Dental Informatics
Dental informatics is the application of
computer and information science to
improve dental practice, research,
education and management.

10. Origin of field
Digital
Economics
Bio analysis
statistics
Cognitive
Psychology Computer
Science
Medicine
Medical Informatics

11. Appearance of computers in
medicine
• 1960s - practical = early use only in departmental
research = early ECG and diagnosis
• 1970s - practical = Huge size- administrative &
departmental, imaging (CT), early bibliographic
retrieval & research
• 1980s - practical = results reporting, outpatient
services growth of clinical systems and databases
research = Artificial Intelligence, Information
Retrieval
• 1990s - practical = integration, communication
research = vocab, interfaces, coding, evaluation
Note how medicine lags computer hardware

12. Appearance of computers in
medicine
Administrative Research
Research Practical
1960 1970 1980 1990
results
Early ECG Huge size- reporting, integration,
and administrative outpatient communica
diagnosis & services growth tion
departmental, of clinical research =
imaging (CT), systems and vocab,
early databases interfaces,
bibliographic research = coding,
retrieval & Artificial evaluation
research Intelligence,
Information
Retrieval
Note how medicine lags computer hardware

13. Slow at first
Computers have been slow to enter
clinical care:
• # hosp with billing, Administrative vs lab
+ clinical, Artificial Intelligence.
• # offices with clinical systems.
• but clinical care is largely the
management of info.
• primarily in the background: practice
mgmt, libraries, billing, financial

14. Gaining popularity
• recent increase of medical informatics
• not new field but marked increase in
popularity, funding, publication
• eg 1984 AAMC recommended
formation of MI academic units (first
done in Europe, esp France, in the
1960s)

15. Factors in recent increase of
medical informatics
• increase in use of technology - more data
generated
• mobility of population - need to communicate
• specialization - need to communicate
• managed care systems - need to communicate
• rise in health care costs - attempt to control
care
• improved hardware - faster and more memory
• improved methods - acquisition, transfer,
retrieval
• reduced computer costs
• increased awareness

16. Factors in lack of use of
computers in clinical care
• involves complex organisms • health care administered by
(unlike physical processes) individuals, small groups
• if over-simplify, not useful (vs • less need for coordination
bank transaction) • inertia
• therefore need sophisticated • fear: "cookbook medicine"
abstraction + detail • liability
• technology for gathering
complex info. just emerging, eg • ignorance
low use of QMR or Dxplain • money
therefore providers have not • security, integrity
entered info. • lack of standards
• reimbursement has not been • language
linked to clinical info., • previous failures
therefore many admin.
systems but few clinical • rapid turnover of technology

17. Discipline of Health
Informatics
• Why need a new discipline?
– often cannot get credit in related fields for
work at the interface of related disciplines
– few were championing clinical applications
• Medical informatics as a science
– broad spectrum (theory to practice)
– basic science (knowledge for itself, models)
– experimental science (hypothesis, experiment,
analysis)
– applied science, engineering (practical goals)

18. • Composition of medical informatics groups
– MDs, RNs, dentists, other health care workers
– PhDs, esp computer science (also physics, ...)
– Administrators, policy planners
– Masters, PhD programs in medical informatics
– Industry
– Part-time vs full-time
• Institutional organization
– Division within medicine
– Aspect of computer science
– Inter-disciplinary center
– Department (like biostatistics): relatively unusual in
USA

19. Scope of Health Informatics
• Health informatics encompasses all the
areas where technology and information
contribute to the support of health care
delivery, management, planning and
research.
• Related to the core areas are themes such
as ethics, attitudes learning, coping with
third party interactions – all ‘into and
utilizing’ health informatics.
• Other research has been identified into
content provision, generating an evidence
base and knowledge management.

20. Scope of Dental Informatics
• Information Science:
– is the collection, classification, storage,
retrieval, and dissemination of recorded
knowledge treated both as a pure and as an
applied science.
• Computer science:
– is a discipline that involves the understanding
and design of computers and computational
processes. Here, the emphasis is not on
information, but how it is represented,
processed, manipulated, and managed in
computing systems.

21. Scope of Dental Informatics
• Cognitive science:
– is a research area that draws on several fields
(such as psychology, artificial intelligence,
linguistics, and philosophy) to develop theories of
perception, thinking, and learning.
– Cognitive science relates to information science
as we try to understand how information is
represented in the human mind.
– Computer science relates to information science
as try to simulate our mental processes in
computing environments.
– Biomedicine is replete with complex cognitive
processes (such as diagnosis, treatment planning,
and evaluation).

22. Scope of Dental Informatics
• Telecommunications:
– Is the science that deals with
communication at a distance.
– Transmission of digital images efficiently
resulted in new approaches to image
compression and transmission.
– Another example is aggregating
information from many different sources,
such as information about the same patient
from different healthcare providers.

23. Current Issues in Health
Informatics
• Current issues in clinical care
– Cost
– Accessibility of health care
– Coordinating care and setting policy
– Standards of terminology
– Acquisition and retrieval of data (eg across
inst.)
– Data Privacy, confidentiality and security
– Acquisition and sharing of knowledge (eg
specialist).

24. Current Issues in Health
Informatics
• Medical informatics research mirrors clinical issues
– Data acquisition
– Data storage - databases, modeling
– Vocabularies - format, content
– Organization of data
– Machine interfaces - standards like HL7, security
– Data retrieval - query languages
– Knowledge acquisition
– Knowledge representation
– Application of knowledge when needed –
– Decision analysis, alerts, diagnosis
– Education
– Care plans and practice guidelines

25. Current Issues in Health
Informatics
• General research questions in medical
informatics
– Knowledge extraction from databases
– Structuring knowledge: impact on
acquisition, storage and retrieval
– Linking different classes of knowledge
– Using knowledge to make decisions
– Human factors in computing
– Taxonomy
– Linking disparate systems

26. This weeks assignments
1. View this lecture online.
2. Read article; Dental informatics. A cornerstone of
dental practice. by TITUS SCHLEYER and HEIKO
SPALLEK
3. Participate in Week 2 discussion.
(NO Homework- NO quiz this week)
View Read Discuss

27. • Thank you
– Dr Ebtissam Al-Madi
– ealmadi@ksu.edu.sa