: Health Informatics

Health informatics is a relatively new scientific discipline that incorporates knowledge from biomedicine, computer science, information science, psychology, business and other fields.

It deals with the systematic processing of data, information and knowledge in health in order to improve decision making. It is both multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary.

With ever-increasing complexity of health care and pressures on health professionals to do more with less, health informatics principles and information technologies are becoming more important. Moreover, the storage, processing and communication of health information directly affect the quality of delivered health care.

Course outline This course provides an overview of this broad field with an emphasis on fundamental principles as well as health information technologies. It teaches important concepts in health informatics and computing, including: modelling of health, communication theory, information retrieval, medical decision making, terminology and standards, evaluation, ethics, computer hardware and software.

It also examines applications of health informatics such as electronic medical records, clinical decision support systems and telemedicine.

This is a five-day course consisting of lectures, small group tutorials and computer lab work. In preparation for the teaching week, you will be sent pre-reading on 2 December 2011.

Who should attend? Health informatics is short of specifically trained individuals nationally and globally. This course provides the foundation for those who wish to begin a career in health informatics. It will also appeal to health care and information technology people who wish to cross over into health informatics. It will be informative to anyone who has a curiosity about this emerging and diverse field.

Please note: this is a five day unit with associated enrolment and fee requirements. Please visit our website for full information.