HEALTH
INFORMATICS FOR STUDENTS OF
TAIF
UNIVERSITY
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Health informatics, as a discipline rather than a theoretical concept, traces back to Europe. New York University reports the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Medizinische Dokumentation, Informatik und Statistik (German Society for Medical Documentation, Computer Science and Statistics), established in 1949, was the first organization dedicated to health informatics. In the United States, health informatics didn't hit its stride until the 1970s, after the development of the MUMPS programming language, which enabled medical database creation and integration. Today, the National Library of Medicine recognizes health informatics as a field and supports graduate and postgraduate education in the discipline.
The security of electronic information poses a major
concern, given the highly sensitive nature of the records. Privacy laws, such
as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), limit the
amount and kinds of information health care providers can disseminate, even to
each another. As many of the existing systems developed at different times or
for different reasons, the ability of the systems to communicate varies.
Established in 2004, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health
information Technology is tasked with helping to manage or solve these problems.
