1. Next Step of Health Informatics
Education and Research
Ed ti dR h
in Thailand
Nawanan Theera-Ampornpunt, MD, MS (Health Informatics)
Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital
PhD Candidate in Health Informatics, Uni ersit of Minnesota
Informatics University
http://www.slideshare.net/nawanan
August 21, 2010
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Thailand License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/th/

2. Session Outline
• Introduction about the field
• Thailand’s research in ICT in healthcare
Thailand s
• Thailand’s educational landscape in ICT
& health i f
h lth informatics
ti
• National policy a d st ateg es for ICT
at o a po cy and strategies o C
& informatics workforce development,
research,
research and education
2

3. Introduction
3

4. What Is Informatics?
• The discipline focused on acquisition,
storage, and use of information in a
g ,
specific setting or domain (Hersh, 2009)
• Scientific study of information
( e s a e al, 0 0)
(Bernstam et a , 2010)
• How is it different from computer science?
p
4

5. What Is Informatics?
Knowledge
g
Knowledge
K l d management
Information Informatics
(Data + Meaning)
Computer
Data Science
5

6. What’s Health Informatics?
• Formerly known as “Medical Informatics”
(this term is being retired)
• Health Informatics = Biomedical Informatics
• Informatics in biomedicine and health
– Personal health and wellbeing
– Health care
– Public health (epidemiology, policy, environment)
– Biomedical research
– Education of health professionals
6

7. What’s Health Informatics?
Shortliffe, 2002
7

8. Informatics & Other Fields
Social Sciences
(Psychology, Statistics &
Sociology, Research
Linguistics, Law Methods
& Ethics)
Cognitive & Medical
Decision Sciences &
Science Public Health
Engineering Management
Computer & Biomedical/ Library Science,
Information Health Information
Science Retrieval, KM
Informatics
8

9. Information Is Everywhere
9

10. Why Health Informatics?
• Information is at the heart of biomedicine
p
• Health care is not simple
– People’s business
– Biological organisms vs. engineered machines
g g g
– Uncertainty in medicine
– Life and death
– Complex and heterogeneous nature of information &
knowledge
10

11. Fundamental Theorem
Friedman, 2009
11

12. The Role of Informaticians
I want a system that helps me
make DDx, warns me when I’m
about to make a mistake, like
giving Aminoglycoside to a
patient with CRF, reminds me
when I forget to follow CPG for
DM patients, and most
importantly, don’t get between
me and my patients!
12

13. The Role of Informaticians
Not a problem, Doc! I will first need
to understand what DDx
DDx,
I want a system that helps me
Aminoglycoside, CRF, CPG, DM
make are, and then I’ll whenwriting UML
DDx, warns me start I’m
aboutandmake a mistake, like
to design the ER Diagram I’m
Diagram. I m
giving Aminoglycoside to a web app
thinking about using a
patient with CRF, remindswe’ll need to
with AJAX. I believe me
when I forgetfrom MySQL to for
migrate to follow CPG some other
DM patients, and most Linux web
DBMS, and ideally a
importantly, don’t get between
server. It will probably need SSL
me and my patients! think?
too. What do you
y
13

14. The Result
Washington Post (
g (March 21, 2005)
, 5)
“One of the most important lessons learned to date is that the complexity
of human change management may be easily underestimated”
Langberg ML (2003) in “Challenges to implementing CPOE: a case study of a work in progress at Cedars-Sinai”
14

15. The Role of Informaticians
Medical Technical
Language Language
Knowledge of Knowledge of Key
Clinical Reasoning &
g Technical Issues
Healthcare Processes Relevant to Health Care
15

16. The Result
16

17. Key Areas in Health Informatics
• Clinical applications
– Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
– Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE)
– Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs)
– Personal Health Records (PHRs)
– Health Information Exchange (HIE)
• People & Organizational Issues in Informatics
• Standards
• Privacy & Security of Health Information
• Clinical Research I f
Cli i l R h Informatics
ti
17

18. Current Workforce
• ~10-15 clinicians with strong IT experience who
can be considered “thought leaders”
• 2 MD/PhD in Information Science/Informatics
• 2-3 PhD or Post-Doc in Health Informatics
23 Post Doc
• 3 MD & 1 Pharm + Masters in H/M Informatics
• Other clinicians with some IT/informatics training
(unknown #)
• IT management & staff (not trained in informatics)
(unknown #)
• Estimated needs: 1 per 50-60 staff (Hersh, 2008)
18

19. Educational Opportunities
• Certificates
g
• Undergraduate
– ICT/Engineering with health care focus
– MD with some informatics background
g
– Electives
• MS/PhD in Health Informatics
– Integrate students with health & IT backgrounds
• MD/MS & MD/PhD in Health Informatics
• Fellowship in Health Informatics?
19

20. Next?
• What are the active areas of research at the intersection
of ICT and healthcare?
– Success factors/issues?
• What are the landscape of currently available curricula in
ICT and informatics?
• How to establish a high-quality academic program in
health informatics in Thailand?
ea o a cs a a d
• Who sets the national policy in the area of ICT &
informatics?
• What should be the strategies for moving the country’s
informatics education & research forward?
20

21. References
• Bernstam EV S i h JW J h
B EV, Smith JW, Johnson TR Wh i bi
TR. What is biomedical
di l
informatics? J Biomed Inform. 2010 Feb;43(1):104-10.
• Friedman CP. A "fundamental theorem" of biomedical informatics.
J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2009 Apr;16(2):169-70.
• Hersh W. A stimulus to define informatics and health information
technology.
technology BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 2009;9:24
Mak. 2009;9:24.
• Hersh W. Health and biomedical informatics: opportunities and
challenges for a twenty-first century profession and its education.
Yearb Med Inform. 2008:157-64.
• Shortliffe EH. JBI status report. Journal of Biomedical Informatics.
2002 Oct;35(5-6):279-80
Oct;35(5 6):279 80.
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