Topic outline

  • Introduction

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    Health informatics, defined by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, is "the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption, and application of IT-based innovations in healthcare services delivery, management, and planning". The purpose of this course is to focus on Low- to Middle-Income Countries, in order to consider how informatics can be used to help tackle some of the health problems facing populations.

    The course has been informed by discussions through HIFA whose vision is "A world where every person and every health worker will have access to the healthcare information they need to protect their own health and the health of those for whom they are responsible." (Note: you can access or join HIFA for more information).

    Pang et al identified a grand challenge for global public health: "to ensure that everyone in the world can have access to clean, clear, knowledge — a basic human right, and a public health need as important as access to clean, clear, water, and much more easily achievable". They go on to say: "Patients or consumers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers/managers who make up the health system must be better served by knowledge from various sources. If this is achieved, progress can be made in overcoming the seven ubiquitous health-care problems: errors and mistakes, poor quality health care, waste, unknowing variations in policy and practice, poor experience by patients, overenthusiastic adoption of interventions of low value, and failure to get new evidence into practice."

    The development of the internet and its global spread provides the opportunity to increase access to knowledge, hence the field of health informatics. This course aims to provide a framework and some resources to help those in low resource settings meet knowledge needs.

    Based on a review of current literature, we have structured this course in accordance with the 'Information cycle' (Note: Informatics = Information + Information Technology)

    There are resources other than those we include in the sections below which you might want to explore, such as a set of free courses Health Information Systems to Improve Quality of Care in Resource-Poor Settings from MIT.

    Navigating the course.

    We have provided summaries of, and links to, a number of resources we think you will find interesting - to access them, click on the resources in each section, and then on the hyperlinks within each set of resources. There is also a forum in each section for reflection - you can post your reflections there if you wish.

    You can gain a Certificate of Completion - the requirements for this are to access the resources and post a reflection in each section, and pass the quiz at the end.

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  • What is information/informatics and why is it important

    Learning outcome: After reading the resources in this section, and reflecting on them, you should be able to appreciate the scope of global health informatics.

    The resources below focus on the definition and scope of health informatics, and how it relates to Public Health

  • Produce, Collect and Collate information

    Learning outcome: After reading the resources in this section, and reflecting on them, you should be able to understand the ways in which Information Technology can be used to assist in the production, collection and collation of information.

    The resources below focus on Health Information Systems, which can operate at the clinical, population or administrative level. They also cover the newer aspects of Big Data and 'Infodemiology' where epidemiological data are derived from electronic media. 

  • Access information - make it available

    Learning outcome: After reading the resources in this section and reflecting on them, you should understand the ways in which Information Technology can be made available to assist policy makers, clinicians and citizens access information.

    The resources below focus on examples of how Health Informatics works to improve access to information at various levels and might contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals

  • Data governance and data protection

    Data governance

    As this document Data Governance in Public Health from PAHO states, 'Data governance is a set of practices for making decisions about data and for managing data throughout its lifecycle to optimize the organization’s capability to use data to generate information that informs policy, strategy, and operational management...Data governance functions should include defining accountabilities, prioritizing investment requirements, establishing policies, implementing processes, setting standards, managing risks, and monitoring performance related to data throughout its lifecycle...Any organization that collects, manages or uses health data should implement data governance practices.

    Data governance is an organizational capability. Organizations should expect that it will take investments of both time and resources to implement and strengthen data governance. Data governance is a journey of continuous improvement.

    To plan, implement, and continuously improve data governance, organizations should consider people, processes and technology.'

    Please download the document Data Governance in Public Health and examine the table in it for more detail.

    Data protection

    The importance of protecting the privacy of information collected in health information systems (HISs) is becoming increasingly apparent. This is a problem exacerbated by the online nature of most systems.

    The World Health Organisation has published 'The protection of personal data in health information systems – principles and processes for public health. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2020. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.' Here are their conclusions, but we suggest that you explore the whole document here.

    'Compliance with data protection requirements is a challenge for the entire public health community, and specifically for all institutions actively involved in the management of HISs. Notably, the gradually increasing regulatory pressure over the last decades is forcing the public health sector to adjust its policies and practices regarding processing of personal data. It is important to demystify data protection and to provide guidance on how to set up public health measures that comply fully and serve the community. Safeguarding data protection in public health involves new and significant challenges, as technological advances expand the frontiers of areas such as surveillance, Big Data and cloud data storage. Consequently, it is of great importance that public health institutions are equipped to balance the different fundamental rights at stake, and to apply the principles of data protection.

    Data protection is not rocket science: it requires legal and technical artisanship, the allocation of adequate resources and the training of all professionals involved in the processing of personal data. Data protection is not a one-off activity but a continuous effort that is based on an institutional vision, a governance concept and a willingness to be accountable. This accountability, based on a thorough risk assessment, builds on the documentation of data protection activities and
    persistent internal and external oversight.

    While doing justice to all these aspects and requirements may sound overwhelming at first, the most important thing is to get started, even if the start is less ambitious and more a piece-meal
    approach than a holistic concept.'

  • Use information for evidence based practice and policy

    Learning outcome. After reading the resources in this section, and reflecting on them, you should be able to identify potential uses of health informatics in both the clinical and public health areas in your setting.

    The resources below focus on the ways in which informatics has been shown to help with the provision of evidence based clinical diagnosis, care and prevention, as well as in Public Health surveillance and interventions

  • Evaluating the benefits of health informatics

    Learning outcome. After reading the resources in this section, and reflecting on them, you should be able to appreciate the importance of evaluating health informatics programmes, and the value of some of the evaluations that have been performed to date.

    The focus of the resources below is to provide links to various evaluations of the role of health informatics - how we need to learn how to maximise the potential of this field through careful evaluation

  • Take a quiz and earn a certificate

    There are 10 questions in the quiz below. You can earn a certificate of completion, if you take the quiz and access all of the resource links in the sections above.

    • quiz icon
      Quiz: health informatics
      View Receive a grade Receive a passing grade
      Opened: Tuesday, 23 July 2019, 10:20 PM

      Take this quiz - a pass mark of 7/10 is required to qualify for a certificate