The true and noble purpose of health informatics
I was asked this week to provide a succinct definition of health informatics. I am aware that this is something of a minefield. There are many learned organisations who provide definitions, and probably there are as many other definitions as there are health informaticians. It did however cause me to consider whether my view of health informatics has changed in the 30 years that I have been working in the field. So my personal view (I don’t presume to call it a definition) is that: Health informatics is the management of information to support optimal decision-making in order to achieve optimal health outcomes. Please note, there is no reference to technology in this statement. However, for practical purposes my description needs to be amplified by an additional statement: Whilst this…