Public Health Informatics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sundeep Sahay ◽  
T Sundararaman ◽  
Jørn Braa
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Integration ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Health Systems Strengthening ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
New Challenges

Rapid and unpredictable developments in health policies, technologies, disease profiles, institutional environments, and their inter-connections have significant implications on how we design, develop, implement, and use health information systems (HIS) in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Our current systems have heightened expectations but have proven largely incapable of meeting these new challenges. Nor have they been able to effectively leverage upon the new opportunities that are emerging, such as through the cloud, big data, the proliferation of mobile devices and the Internet of Things, and also the increasing array of new open source software solutions being made available through global development communities. What is required to try and address these challenges and opportunities? This book proposes the ‘Expanded PHI’ (public health informatics) perspective as a way forward, and through the various chapters first seeks to define it, and then apply it to analyse the following key problematics facing public health informatics in the domains of research, practice, and policy: use of information; integration of systems; leveraging cloud computing and big data; design and building of institutions that facilitate; managing complexity; evolving governance mechanisms and standards; responding to the new challenges thrown up by universal health coverage and Sustainable Development Goals; and building synergies between health systems strengthening and health information strengthening efforts. In defining the scope of Expanded PHI, the field of public health informatics is first situated within an informatics context, and then within public health and finally within the context of changing global health policies. Drawing from these contextualizations, the design principles for Expanded PHI are elucidated, based primarily on a social systems perspective, where the health of populations is kept as the central purpose and a participatory and incremental nature of change as the primary strategy.

Decentralized Information Use

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sundeep Sahay ◽  
T Sundararaman ◽  
Jørn Braa
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Do So

This chapter seeks to explore the challenge and opportunities that cloud computing and big data offer to strengthen public health informatics in LMICs. Cloud computing is slowly becoming a norm, almost representing a technical and social order which we do not fully understand, but need to accept. While there is a multiplicity of understandings associated with the cloud, we often focus only on its technical elements, while ignoring the business model that underlies it. This incomplete understanding may lead to LMICs making investments in solutions which are unsustainable, while also creating new challenges and demands for capacity. The cloud also raises key dilemmas around participation, decentralization, and ownership of data. Developments in big data, necessarily dependent on the cloud, are another source of challenges and opportunities for LMICs. Whether we like it or not, cloud computing and big data are integral elements to develop the Expanded PHI perspective, and we need to find appropriate approaches to do so.

Strengthening Healthcare Systems and Health Information Systems

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sundeep Sahay ◽  
T Sundararaman ◽  
Jørn Braa
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Health Information Systems ◽  
Health Systems Strengthening ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
Reform Processes

Establishment of health information systems has been a central objective of health sector reform in nearly all LMICs over the last two to three decades. Historically, reform processes have taken introduction of health information systems as inhertently strengthening health sector performance. But today it is more appropriate to talk of health sector strengthening as co-evolving with health information systems strengthening, each reinforcing the performance and reform agendas of the other. The need to build synergies is heightened as there are a multitude of global and national health reform processes underway, like those assoicated with the sustainable development goals or with universal health coverage and each of these have expanded informational needs, requiring robust, flexible, and evolving health information systems. An understanding of the challenges faced by efforts at health systems strengthening helps provide meaningful inputs into health information systems design and vice versa. Such an understanding will enrich public health informatics as an academic discipline, as an area of practice, and as a policy domain.

scholarly journals Big Data Application in Biomedical Research and Health Care: A Literature Review

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. BII.S31559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake Luo ◽  
Min Wu ◽  
Deepika Gopukumar ◽  
Yiqing Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Imaging Informatics ◽  
Clinical Informatics ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
Big Data Applications ◽  
Data Application ◽  
Big Data Application

Big data technologies are increasingly used for biomedical and health-care informatics research. Large amounts of biological and clinical data have been generated and collected at an unprecedented speed and scale. For example, the new generation of sequencing technologies enables the processing of billions of DNA sequence data per day, and the application of electronic health records (EHRs) is documenting large amounts of patient data. The cost of acquiring and analyzing biomedical data is expected to decrease dramatically with the help of technology upgrades, such as the emergence of new sequencing machines, the development of novel hardware and software for parallel computing, and the extensive expansion of EHRs. Big data applications present new opportunities to discover new knowledge and create novel methods to improve the quality of health care. The application of big data in health care is a fast-growing field, with many new discoveries and methodologies published in the last five years. In this paper, we review and discuss big data application in four major biomedical subdisciplines: (1) bioinformatics, (2) clinical informatics, (3) imaging informatics, and (4) public health informatics. Specifically, in bioinformatics, high-throughput experiments facilitate the research of new genome-wide association studies of diseases, and with clinical informatics, the clinical field benefits from the vast amount of collected patient data for making intelligent decisions. Imaging informatics is now more rapidly integrated with cloud platforms to share medical image data and workflows, and public health informatics leverages big data techniques for predicting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks, such as Ebola. In this paper, we review the recent progress and breakthroughs of big data applications in these health-care domains and summarize the challenges, gaps, and opportunities to improve and advance big data applications in health care.

scholarly journals Development and validation of an instrument for measuring competencies on public health informatics of primary health care worker (PHIC4PHC) in Indonesia

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enny Rachmani ◽  
Chien-Yeh Hsu ◽  
Peter WuShou Chang ◽  
Anis Fuad ◽  
Nurjanah Nurjanah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Primary Health Care ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Resource Limited Setting ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
Resource Limited ◽  
Limited Setting

Abstract Because of the increasing adoption and use of technology in primary health care (PHC), public health informatics competencies (PHIC) are becoming essential for public health workers. Unfortunately, no studies have measured PHIC in resource-limited setting. This paper describes the process of developing and validating Public Health Informatics Competencies for Primary Health Care (PHIC4PHC), an instrument for measuring PHC workers’ competencies in public health informatics. Method: This study developed a questionnaire that had three stages: the Delphi technique, a pretest, and field test. Eleven academicians from a university and 13 PHC workers joined 2 rounds of group discussion in the first stage. The second stage comprised two pilot studies with 75 PHC workers in Semarang Municipality. The third stage involved validating the questionnaire with 462 PHC workers in Kendal District. This study used Pearson’s product-moment correlation for the validity check and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for determining the internal consistency. This study used the K-means algorithm for clustering the results of the PHIC4PHC questionnaire. Results and Conclusion: PHIC4PHC is the first comprehensive PHIC questionnaire administered in a resource-limited setting, consisting of 11 indicators and 42 measurement items concerning knowledge of health information systems, skills required for health data management, ethical aspects of data sharing and health information literacy. The final results of PHIC4PHC were clustered into three classes based on the K-means algorithm. Overall, 45.7% PHC workers achieved medium competency, whereas 25.6% and 27.7% achieved low and high competency, respectively. Men had higher competency than women. The higher the worker’s level of education, the higher the PHIC level; the longer the worker’s work experience, the lower the PHIC score; and the greater the worker’s age, the lower the PHIC score. Measuring and monitoring PHIC is vital to support successful health IT adoption in PHC.

scholarly journals Applied Public Health Informatics: An eHealth Discipline Focused on Populations

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Edward Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Population Health ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Health Information Systems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
Public Health Information

The discipline of public health informatics, part of the broader eHealth field, brings methods, knowledge, and theories from computer science and information science to support population health and well-being. This branch of informatics is most often found in governmental public health agencies that focus on population-level activities, including surveillance of disease as well as disease prevention. There are several specialised public health information systems used to prevent or mitigate disease, including syndromic surveillance, electronic laboratory reporting, and population health dashboards. This article defines and describes public health informatics and its role in eHealth. The article further discusses the role of public health information systems and challenges they face for the future. Strengthening public health will require greater investment in interoperability as well as analytics and the workforce. Disease outbreaks like COVID-19, Ebola, and H1N1 demonstrate the need for robust public health informatics applications and methods. Yet there is much work to be done to evolve existing tools and methods to strengthen the public health infrastructure for the next pandemic.

scholarly journals Applications of information and communications technologies to public health: A scoping review using the MeSH term “public health informatics”

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjun Kumar Bhattarai ◽  
Aein Zarrin ◽  
Joon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Mesh Term ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Public Health Informatics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Information And Communication

Objective: To examine public health informatics (PHI) articles that are tagged with MeSH term “public health informatics” and to review the use of this MeSH term in recognizing the current state of PHI. Materials and Methods: MeSh term “public health informatics” was searched on MEDLINE-PubMed. The result of the search was screened in two steps. First, articles were included or excluded based on their titles and abstracts. Second, a full-text review was conducted to ensure the relevance of the included articles. All articles were charted based on public health focus, information technology, article type, and informatics concept. Results: 515 articles met the inclusion criteria. The majority of the articles focused on communicable disease monitoring, public health policy and research, and public health awareness. Syndromic surveillance and communication between clinical and public health units were dominant themes, while electronic registries and websites were the most popular information technologies applied in this field. Data collection, retrieval, and management were the most prevalent informatics concepts, and data security was the least researched concept. Discussion: PHI is a multi-disciplinary field with a wide range of themes, such as disease and injury surveillance, environmental monitoring, and research/policy utilization. MeSh term-tagged articles emphasized the need for further research in interoperability, data quality, appropriate data sources, accessible health information, and communication. Conclusion: Despite the rapid growth in PHI, improvements in interoperability, data quality, appropriate data sources, accessible health information and communication between stakeholders is needed to facilitate adequate implementation of PHI into the healthcare system.

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