MEDICAL INFORMATICS |
Medical Informatics comes with a whole string of definitions, colored and shaded by the definer's background, viewpoint and preoccupation. The following definitions have been arranged chronologically:
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.
MF Collen, MEDINFO '80, Tokyo
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.
Association of American Medical Colleges, 1986
Informatics is the field concerned with the cognitive, information processing, and communication tasks of medical practice, education, and research, including the information science and technology to support these tasks. Greenes and Shortliffe JAMA 263: 1114-1120, 1990
Informatics is the science underlying the
acquisition, maintenance, retrieval, and application of biomedical knowledge
and information to improve patient care, education, research and administration.
Charles Friedman, Center for Biomedical Informatics: Introductory
Lecture Series, Medical Informatics: Challenges and Opportunities, 1996
Medical Informatics is the branch of science
concerned with the use of computers and communication technology to acquire,
store, analyze, communicate, and display medical information and knowledge
to facilitate understanding and improve the accuracy, timeliness, and
reliability of decision-making.
Warner, Sorenson and Bouhaddou, Knowledge Engineering in Health
Informatics, 1997
Medical Informatics (MI) is the science
of computer optimization of the transfer and interpretation of clinical
data. It has a special emphasis on analyzing and supporting the medical
decision-making process.
From the DISTANCE LEARNING course in INTRODUCTORY MEDICAL INFORMATICS
of the SCHOOL of PUBLIC HEALTH, Department of BIOMETRY and STATISTICS,
of the University at Albany, Albany NY
With all these definitions, you can probably come up with your own too.