Talk:Health informatics

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[edit] Commercial links?

The original and official website of Care2x is www.care2x.org. The care2x.de is a private website which is not officially sanctioned by the care2x project.

Can we please get rid of all those external links, excluding the professional societies? JFW | T@lk 06:57, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Are links to commercial sites from an "academic" article legitimate? Codish 18:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but only if they are notable compared to the many other commercial equivalents (or if all of a discrete number of commercial links were included perhaps) Donama 22:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I see MediTech is listed under links - why not all other vendors of healthcare IT? Codish 18:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point - removed Donama 22:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Removed E-health from references Stevecalloway 22:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Stevecalloway 23:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Health informatics not Medical informatics

Informatics is an issue for all of healthcare and healthcare is far broader than medicine. The accepted overarching term is ‘health informatics’. This banner of Medical Informatics needs to be changed to health informatics and Medical Informatics shown as a sub specialty. MoyaC

Agree. That means this article should be renamed to Health informatics and a section added to that called "Medical informatics" containing much of current content. If there is no dissent over the next few day we should go ahead and do it. I think there is the same problem with EMR article vs EHR article. Let's get it right! Donama 00:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I must disagree. Most currenlty consider these terms to be synonymous. Medical Informatics, Health Informatics, and Biomedical Informatics are often used interchangeably. Most in the field do not consider one to be a sub-domain of any other (as opposed to "clinical informatics" which is a sub-domain of the larger field - whatever we want to call it). Although some people are of the opinion that one term is preferred to another, there is not yet concensus on which is the "correct" choice. I'd point out the the American Medical Informatics Association hasn't changed its name though it clearly is the lead academic organization for this field. Likewise, there are many academic Informatics departments at universities across the globe that have taken any of the three variations above as their name. Hersh touches on this in his 2002 JAMA article http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/288/16/1955. In it he states, "Some have argued that the adjective medical in front of informatics is inappropriate because it implies the work of physicians and not the remainder of health care and biomedical science. However, this name has achieved widespread usage. In the article by Kukafka et al, Shortliffe described medical informatics as the broad term representing the core theories, concepts, and techniques of information applications in health and biomedicine, with the other adjectives preceding the word informatics denoting the specific application area. Core themes that emerge from informatics science (standards, terminology, usability, and demonstrated value) are relevant across all levels of medical informatics, not solely clinical informatics." As you can see by this description, clinical informatics refers to the "informatics of clinical medicince", but the term "Medical Informatics" is the broader term for the informatics of the whole field of "Medicine" or "Health". So, I suggest consideration be given to dealing with these as synonyms for now. This issue may be resolved in time as one term rises as the preferred one. But, until then, I'd not remove Medical Informatics and I certainly wouldn't make it part of Health Informatics. Infomd 20:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, but action is still required here. It is not Wikipedia policy to maintain 2 separate articles for two synonymous terms. A choice must be made on the most appropriate term internationally (which I think is health informatics) and the article should be maintained there in ONE place. What do you think? Donama 03:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
That's one of the points I was trying to make above - there is no concensus, even internationally, on what is the one most appropriate term. For instance, the international organization that is a cousin to the US one I mentioned above is International Medical Informatics Association - http://www.imia.org/ Also, for what it's worth, the term "Medical Informatics" earns 5,200,000 hits on Google while "Health Informatics" only 1,620,000 hits. So, for now, I guess I'd vote to leave it as is. I notice that the term "Health Informatics" already redirects people to "Medical Informatics", so to my mind, no further action is required right now. Having made that case as best I can, if there is strong feeling on the other side, I won't stand in the way; Which ever is chosen, I'm more concerned that the article clearly comment that these are synonyms rather than conflusing "Medical Informatics" for "Clinical Informatics" or "Physician Informatics" as sometimes happens in other venues. On a personal note, I happen to be fine with Health Informatics as a descriptor; I just think the choice at this point is arbritrary as there is no concensus. So, reasonable to leave as is for now? Infomd 20:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Even if we can't choose the most appropriate term, we have to select a term. I think we should favour "health informatics" as the title here, because it is the broader, more encompassing term. Two articles for synonymous terms is not okay. I myself put in the redirect from "Health informatics", just a few months back because I was disappointed to find no article for it and didn't want others to have to search like me or to go ahead and start writing the article. This is probably what stops content from being there in the first place. I don't think it offers any indication that the term "health informatics" is a less favoured term. A note on Googlefights -- in a case like this where we are talking about North America vs the rest of the English-speaking world, the odds are stacked to give the American term the advantage regardless of whether it is more correct because there are - and have been since 1995 - more Internet users there than any other English-speaking region. Donama 21:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll take your points one by one and try to explain (and I'd ask you read this without assuming anyting about my motives or biases just because I happen to be North American - as I'll point out below, this particular argumetn is by no means settled in North America either. It's just that this is my field, and I felt compelled to correct the rather narrow definition that existed for Medical Informatics before I altered it a few days ago. So, to your points...
Regarding your reiteration that, "Even if we can't choose the most appropriate term, we have to select a term...," I got that point the first time you raised it - really - and I voted for one of them. My vote was to leave Medical Informatis as the term. Clearly you're voting for the other, and that's fine, but I did choose one. I realize that many feel differently about which is right - hence the need for this discussion.
Regarding the Google issue - point taken - if you read my post above you'll note I said - "for what it's worth".
Regarding the fact that there's nothing currently in the Health Informatics section because of your prior redirect - I'm sure you're right. I didn't presume that just because there was nothing there that meant people didn't think it was a relevant term. I recognize that there are many pushing for "Health Informatics" to be the accepted term, just as there are many pushing to hold onto the historical term that is Medical Informatics.
Regarding your North America vs. rest of the English-speaking world remark, I know you were making a Googlefight point, but I'm afraid it might also represent a misunderstanding on your part of this particular issue in North America. It's wrong to assume (if you do) that the term "Medical Informatics" is clearly preferred within North America. In fact, there is considerable disagreement WITHIN North America about what the term should be for our discipline. Also, as I pointed out, with my reference to IMIA, there are those in the International community who continue to use "Medical Informatics' (e.g. IMIA, the International MEDICAL INFORMATICS Association represents, well, the International Medical Informatics community), though I conceed that in Australia and the UK in particular "Health Informatics" seems to be predominate. Also, you might be interested to know that the term actually has its origins in Russia "informatika", and was popularized in France in the late 1960's "informatique de medecine" where university departments took that title, before it was first adopted in the US in the 1970s (replacing "Medical Information Science" and other titles).
So, the point I'm making is that there is considerable evidence that there is not a clear choice for what the appropriate term should be. You seem to think you know which term is most appropriate. You may be right, but all you've presented your contention. I've tried to present some sources to make the case for two things: 1) that "Medical Informatics" isn't a less broad, sub-discipline of "Health Informatics" as had been suggested in the last version of this article before I changed it and in your earlier post, and 2) that according to the academic literature and certain relevant professional organizations, it's not so clear-cut which term should be. So, I voted to maintain the status quo in my last post.
Having said all of that, allow me to offer these conclusions and a suggestion to hopefully move us ahead:
1) Let's agree to disagree about whether there is a most appropriate term (not what it is, but whether there is one)
2) The fact is that Health Informatics is synonymous with Medical Informatics and Biomedical Informatics. One is not the broader or more encompassing term for the discipline. They are truly synonymous when used as intended - (again I refer to Hersh's article, and I can produce other sources to back this up - we can even discuss it in historical terms in the article with supportive citations if necessary). However...
3) Since there is not concensus as to which is the most appropriate term, either within North America or Internationally, we can pick any one we want (and someone will always disagree), and...
4) Since we don't want to have duplicate articles for these synonyms.
5) So, since I see the choice as nearly a toss-up between the three contenders above, and I tend to believe that "Health Informatics" will be more palatable to most readers, and ...
6) In the interest of international wiki-harmony, I'll happily change my prior vote to support going with "Health Informatics" instead of "Medical Informatics".
In conclusion, I propose that unless others weigh in, we agree to make the change to Health Informatics as the main term.
(If you'd like to take care of this, I'll also point out that there are two versions of Health Informatics one with the upper case "Informatics" - Health Informatics which currently points to Health care informatics and the other with a lowercase "informatics" - Health informatics which currently points to the article under discussion here, Medical Informatics.
Thanks for a lively discussion and best wishes for a happy holiday season.Infomd 05:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
On another note, I believe the same redirection as has been done with health informatics is necessary for the current biomedical informatics and health care informatics articles. Again, some would argue that one of these terms and not "Medical Informatics" should be the top banner name for the discipline, but... Actually, one thing I do feel strongly about is that health care informatics is not the "right choice" because that does exclude non "care" related aspects of Medicine like Basic Science - or Bioinformatics. (Oh, and this may not need to be said, but sub domains like bioinformatics and clinical informatics should have their own articles - whew! Infomd 20:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
You could perform these merges and redirects if necessary, but it would need to be raised on the relevant talk pages. Donama 21:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Finally, I agree with the other comment above regarding EHR/EMR. Here, I believe it's clear from the literature that EHR has become the accepted term, so I'd agree with changing that to have EMR point to EHR and let EHR be the main term. Thanks for the discussion; happy to continue it as needed. Infomd 20:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Again, this is a discussion for the EHR/EMR talk pages. Since both contain content, they'd have to be merged too so it's not trivial. (At least for redirecting this (medical informatics) article no merge would be required) Donama 21:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the education as to procedure here - I'm new to Wikipedia and this is appreicated - sincerely.Infomd 05:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


Hi. I'm new to Wikipedia also, but find this article on Health or Medical Informatics both woefully inadequate, and also flat our wrong.

There is no mention of Homer "Pug" Warner, the father of medical informatics.

All of this is clearly detailed in the book "The History Of Medicine In the Beehive State".

Do your homework guys!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.106.48.39 (talk) 23:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Found him, created Homer R. Warner, and referenced him on this article. Thanks for the lead --Enric Naval (talk) 16:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Request reason: Health informatics and Medical informatics are synonymous and both widely used. In English terms, health informatics is the more all-encompassing term Donama 22:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Please use the above section "Health informatics not Medical informatics" to discuss this move.

[edit] Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support Donama 22:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC) as requester.
  • Support See my comments above.Infomd 05:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Result

Moved. WhiteNight T | @ | C 03:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge public health informatics here?

I see this merge has been proposed but no discussion. In absence of any discussion I don't really have a strong opinion either way, but would support it being merged here for the time being. — Donama 05:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Public Health Informatics is only a small subset of Health (actually healthcare) Informatics. It should certainly not be merged. I am removing the Merge banner. Supten 04:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
The fact that public health informatics is a small subset of health informatics is why it is a candidate for a merge in the first place. No one is trying to say that public health informatics simplistically equates to health informatics. The question is whether public health informatics is a big enough topic on it's own to grow beyond being a subsection of this article. If so, we should keep things as they are now. — Donama 08:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. I am currently pursuing a masters degree in public health informatics. I think if there's enough material to get an MPH in it, there's certainly enough material to write a decent article on it. Try a Medline/Ovid search on the topic and check out the numbers for a quick "infodemiological" test. I can work on the article after June Term ends and I get my life back, okay? Museumfreak
I support merging. Please consider that there is great value to the nonmedical, non-IT user of Wikipedia in merging the articles Health informatics, Public health informatics, Biomedical informatics and Bioinformatics into a common article with subsections explaining the distinctions and expanding each topic. Fragmentation of a field is a real problem in Wikipedia, and makes it difficult for users to get fully informed about a topic if they aren't aware of the terms and nuances. Instead of an encyclopedic approach, many small and often incomplete articles are written. Reading these 4 articles, it is hard to see these similarities and distinctions. Given the lead sentence of each article being so similar, I don't think a disambiguation page with a sentence on each topic would be helpful either.--Ryanjo 17:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Well okay, maybe not Bioinformatics, it seems to be more a branch of biology, not IT.--Ryanjo 18:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove 'Medical Informatics Public Utility' section?

This section seems out of place in this article. The author of this section clearly believes strongly in the (patented) concept but I don't think many other people working in the field would necessarily endorse this approach to this problem. The Utility is a solution for a problem of a sub-category of the field of 'Health Informatics', being part of 'Medical Informatics' and being a method to address a specific problem. There are many different problems and each has many potential solutions and these should be discussed in appropriate sections (not here). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhspohr (talk • contribs) 12:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed this section, because besides its other problems, it was copied word for word from this website: [1]Mysteryquest (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Medical computing

The title Health informatics does not sound right to me - it seems to be jargon with overtones of POV/COI - pushing particular professional associations perhaps. I prefer the term Medical computing which seems better for our encyclopedic purpose. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)