Essentials of Clinical Informatics (PDF)

Essentials of Clinical Informatics provides a concise and user-friendly overview on important topics such as technical infrastructure, team members and their roles, informatics methods, policies and laws, implementation, and operations. With increased interest in training and expertise in order to participate in all aspects of medical technology from basic function of electronic health record to data analytics and quality improvement to population health, this work serves as a foundational guide to better understand and analyze medical data.

The book is separated into six parts: Part 1, “Areas of Focus”, is an introduction to the healthcare system and healthcare information systems; Part 2, “The Framework”, discusses the theoretical and procedural infrastructure of informatics, including data, knowledge, people, policies, procedures, and regulations; Part 3, “The Foundation”, covers the fundamentals of clinical informatics in detail, including data representation, computer science, logic and programming, decision-making and decision support, analytics, user experience, and project management; Part 4, “Application of Informatics in Healthcare”, looks at the roles of informatics in the spectrum of healthcare environments from home to hospital to population health; Part 5, “Future Trends’, presents a view of future trends and methods to stay current; and Part 6, “Appendix”, has reference data, glossary, case discussions, citations, recommendations for further reading, and self-assessment questions which may be of interest to professionals who are preparing for certification examinations.