INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE

ENG.º JOSÉ SATCHILUMBO

CAALA - 2023
Introduction to Health Informatics
Health informatics is a hybrid discipline that combines
heterogeneous areas of knowledge such as basic sciences of
information, computer science, different domains of health
(medicine, biology, public health) and cognitive science.
How did it start?

Over the years, various terms have been used

in search of a comprehensive definition that covers all
domains of this area. Starting from the 1960s, terms like
computers in medicine or computers in
biomedicine emerged to describe the first uses of
computers in the healthcare field;
 As time goes by, the applications and uses become
expanded, requiring terms capable of representing, of
broader form, the possible applications of computers
to support processes in the health sector. Since 1980, the
the most commonly used term in the United States was "medical informatics"

adopted for being more comprehensive than the term

"computers in medicine", as it encompassed topics such as
medical statistics, record storage and the study of
nature of medical information.
 Starting from 2000, the first results of the Genome Project
Humans caused an explosion in the use of computational methods
for the analysis of biological data and, consequently, the term
"biomedical informatics" has become the most used. Although the
the terms 'medical informatics' and 'biomedical informatics' are still the

most used in the United States, in countries of Europe and America

In Latin America, the term 'health informatics' is the most common; this term

is being gradually adopted in North America.

Concepts
➢ But what is health informatics, if not pure and
simply the use of computers and information systems
applied to health?

➢ What is the difference between health informatics and technology

of information (IT)?
Information Technology
Traditional IT is a common area for all.
the industries and service sectors of the economy,
including the health sector. IT incorporates a
set of solutions provided by resources and
computer tools to make it easier
collection, storage, transmission, the
access, security, and use of information
necessary for the execution of tasks.
 These IT applications are common for a bank.
how much for a hospital: both need to collect, store and
transmit data in electronic format, as well as ensure its
access and use safely, in order to support the main
activities of your business. Health informatics, on the other hand,

side, involves the application of IT resources predominantly

of information systems to support processes
specific to the health area
Fundamental Theorem of I. S
In general, we can say that IT tends to be
focus more on technology and less on information, while
Health informatics tends to focus more on information.
and less in technology. The fundamental theorem of computer science in

health proposed by Friedman, suggests that health professionals

that work with the support of health information systems
achieve better results than professionals without such support
(Fig. 1.1).
 This theorem is, at the same time, simple and comprehensive

enough to describe the difference between traditional IT and

health informatics: the first focuses on
storage, processing and access to information
necessary to assist and/or automate tasks; the second
focusing on supporting the generation of knowledge for
to assist the decision-making process in health. This difference is

essential, as the health sector has very specific characteristics

peculiar and an ungraspable complexity that differentiates it

of the other sectors of the economy.
 In the 1950s, it was estimated that medical knowledge
(the available knowledge about diseases, diagnoses,
treatments, etc.) folded every 50 years; today, it is estimated that
this knowledge doubles every three and a half years; in
As a result, what a doctor needs to know at the moment
of your graduation represents approximately only 10 of
what he will need to know when he retires.
 Few areas of knowledge or perhaps none
they demand such a dynamic and intense update of their
professionals in the health field. The amount of information
that a clinical professional needs to consult and interpret daily
significantly exceeds its cognitive capacity. In this
context, they are fundamental not only tools that facilitate the
access to the information necessary for execution and management of

tasks (IT), but also tools that provide access to

knowledge necessary for clinical decision making
health informatics
 In 2003, the Institute of Medicine (IOM)
of Medicine) of the United States proposed the five competencies
most important to be developed by everyone
health professionals, and health informatics is one of them:

1. Patient-centered assistance.
2. I work with interdisciplinary teams.
3. Evidence-based medicine.
4. Focus on the quality of care.
5. Health informatics
Health Informatics
Health Informatics as a profession incorporates a
set of specialties and activities practiced by thousands
of professionals around the world. In practical terms, within
from a hospital or a healthcare network, the IT department in
health (or clinical/medical informatics) is normally
represented by a team of trained specialists
specific in health informatics, or by professionals with
clinical training (e.g., doctors, nurses, pharmacists).
 Diagram illustrating the intersection between the main areas
of health informatics and its most common subareas. The
the main areas are clinical informatics, composed of subareas
as medical informatics, nursing informatics, informatics
in pharmacy, imaging informatics (application of systems of
information to support the diagnostic process by
image) consumer informatics (which also belongs to the
public health informatics
 The computer science in public health, composed by the subarea

population informatics; and bioinformatics, composed of the

subareas of biomolecular informatics and translational informatics,
since the latter deals with the application of produced results
through bioinformatics in clinical practice. All these areas and
subareas are studied and improved with the help of areas of
complementary knowledge, such as information science,
computer science and cognitive science.
Health Informatics - Definition
Health informatics is a professional and scientific field.
interdisciplinary, which integrates disciplines of information sciences,
computation, cognition, and health, with the aim of managing and
to communicate data, information, knowledge, and wisdom to
assist the decision-making process in health and improve health in
molecular, individual and population levels.
(according to Nelson and Joos)
 The path taken by health informatics to
transform data (values or measurements devoid of context)
in information (data associated with a context), information in
knowledge (correct interpretation of information), finally
produce wisdom (appropriate use of knowledge for the
Problem-solving can be exemplified by the data theorem.
to-wisdom, proposed by Ramona
Nelson is illustrated on the following page in Figure 1.3.
Historical Evolution
The terms 'medical record', 'medical file' and 'record of
"health" are used interchangeably to describe the
documentation of a patient's health history. The story of
health informatics does not start with the advent of
modern computers, but it is the result of several events
historical figures that contributed to the development of what today
we know it as the PEP or, in its broader form, the register
electronic health record (EHR).
 The acronym PEP is commonly used to describe systems
of information that deals with electronic health records
used within a health organization (e.g., a hospital
or an outpatient clinic), while the RES allows for management
of electronic records that go beyond the borders of a
isolated organization (e.g., data management of a network of
hospitals, whether they are part of the same organization or not

health).
 The first milestones in the evolution of the medical record

occurred in antiquity with the development of reports of

clinical history for didactic purposes. The oldest example is
probably found in the use of papyrus leaves in ancient times
Egypt. Between the years 1950 and 1960, computers started to
to be used in American hospitals and various researchers
They used this equipment to improve assistance.
medical.
 In 1956, the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, acquired
a digital computer for use in clinical research, and a
cardiologist at the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) hospital, named Homer R.
Warner used this computer for the development of a
clinical decision support system, which offered suggestions for
diagnoses for cardiological care. This system was
tested in the catheterization laboratory of the LDS hospital through
comparison of diagnoses of patients treated in the laboratory
suggested by the system with the diagnoses suggested by the doctors
responsible for referring these patients to the laboratory.
 Between 1961 and 1969, other systems were developed in
LDS hospital and in 1970, the development of a database started
data to integrate these systems, which resulted in the creation of
hospital information system Health Evaluation through Logical
Processing (HELP), used and improved for more than four
decades in all hospitals of the Intermountain healthcare network
Healthcare, founded in 1975, encompassing the LDS hospital and others.
hospitals and clinics in the region. As a result of the initial research
led by Warner in 1964, he led the foundation of the first
Department of Health Informatics in the United States.
Created Department of Computer Science
Biomedicine from the University of Utah

(at the time, Department of

Biophysics and Bioengineering). For its
pioneering, Warner is considered
by many the father of computing in
health. Figure 1.4 shows it and
other researchers in the central of
data processing of
LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City.
End of Class