Overview of Medical Informatics
Medical informatics cuts across all fields of medicine through different basic and applied concepts. Some of the basic sciences in medical informatics include: computer science, information science, cognitive science, and decision sciences. Others would fall under the applied science category such as: software and computer engineering (health information systems, decision support systems, electronic patient records), clinical epidemiology, and bioengineering (medical imaging). As a body of knowledge, medical informatics has its own set of terminology and language, culture and organizations derived from the foundation sciences that comprise it. Its applications clearly touch on every specialty whenever data, information and knowledge need to be acquired, stored and manipulated for the good of the patient or of a population as in public health. Methods and applications in medical informatics also create an impact on different populations: the end-user, and the patient, not to mention the developer of technology and the administrator. And as in any surgical, pharmacologic or physical intervention, a need to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of that intervention has to be addressed.
Figure 1 shows the different medical fields and the potential involvement of medical informatics in each one.
Figure 1. The World of Medical Informatics