Full Description
Let us not go over the old ground, let us rather prepare for what is to come. —Marcus Tullius Cicero Improvements in the health status of communities depend on effective public health and healthcare infrastructures. These infrastructures are increasingly electronic and tied to the Internet. Incorporating emerging technologies into the service of the community has become a required task for every public health leader. The revolution in information technology challenges every sector of the health enterprise. Individuals, care providers, and public health agencies can all benefit as we reshape public health through the adoption of new infor- tion systems, use of electronic methods for disease surveillance, and refor- tion of outmoded processes. However, realizing the benefits will be neither easy nor inexpensive. Technological innovation brings the promise of new ways of improving health. Individuals have become more involved in knowing about, and managing and improving, their own health through Internet access. Similarly, healthcare p- viders are transforming the ways in which they assess, treat, and document - tient care through their use of new technologies. For example, point-of-care and palm-type devices will soon be capable of uniquely identifying patients, s- porting patient care, and documenting treatment simply and efficiently.
Contents
The Context for Public Health Informatics.- to Public Health Informatics.- History and Significance of Information Systems and Public Health.- Better Health Through Informatics: Managing Information to Deliver Value.- The Governmental and Legislative Context of Informatics.- The Science of Public Health Informatics.- Information Architecture.- Core Competencies in Public Health Informatics.- Assessing the Value of Information Systems.- Managing IT Personnel and Projects.- Public Health Informatics and Organizational Change.- Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security of Public Health Information.- Data Standards in Public Health Informatics.- Evaluation for Public Health Informatics.- Ethics, Information Technology, and Public Health: Duties and Challenges in Computational Epidemiology.- Key Public Health Information Systems.- The National Vital Statistics System.- Morbidity Data.- Risk Factor Information Systems.- Informatics in Toxicology and Environmental Public Health.- Knowledge-Based Information and Systems.- New Challenges, Emerging Systems.- New Means of Data Collection.- New Means for Increasing Data Accessibility.- Geographic Information Systems.- Immunization Registries: Critical Tools for Sustaining Success.- Decision Support and Expert Systems in Public Health.- Promoting the Delivery of Preventive Medicine in Primary Care.- Case Studies: Applications of Information Systems Development.- Policy Issues in Developing Information Systems for Public Health Surveillance of Communicable Diseases.- Networking/Connecting People in a Sustainable Way: Information Network for Public Health Officials.- The Community Health Information Movement: Where It's Been, Where It's Going.- Developing the Missouri Integrated Public Health Information System.- Using InformationSystems to Build Capacity: A Public Health Improvement Tool Box.- Using Data to Meet a Policy Objective: Community Health Assessment Practice with the CATCH Data Warehouse.- International Networking: Addressing the Challenge of Emerging Infections.- Case Study: An Immunization Data Collection System for Private Providers.- Public Health Informatics in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.- Epilogue: The Future of Public Health Informatics.
