The infusion of Information Technology in the field of health and medicine has led to the rebirth of the said field. Technological advancements that have affected the field of health have affected the human society as a whole directly and have mostly proved to be beneficial rather than hazardous.

Formally speaking, the definition of Medical Informatics, as quoted at openclinical.com, is stated as follows:

 Medical Informatics is the “scientific field that deals with biomedical information, data, and knowledge – their storage, retrieval, and optimal use for problem solving and decision making. It accordingly touches on all basic and applied fields in biomedical science and is closely tied to modern information technologies, notably in the areas of computing and communication (medical computer science)”
[Stanford Medical Informatics].

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Copyright Geekword.net

Thus, in the light of the above-mentioned definition, Medical Informatics can very well be termed as the handling of data with respect to health and medicine with the assistance of computers and computer related systems.

Medical Information Management, or simply put, the managing of all information related to health and medicine has become an integral part of the health care profession in the modern times. The present state of Health and Medicine cannot be executed without the involvement of information systems that are computer based.

Health/Medical Informatics can very well be termed as a field of information processing and health related tasks that involve the following processing:

  • Medical cognitive tasks. This may involve the assessment of severity of a disease by analyzing the prior medical record history of a patient.
  • Health Information Processing, The integration of healthcare related data that may possess different technological backgrounds at their respective ends.
  • Communication tasks related to health. This may involve the coordination of physicians, patient and nursing staff within a healthcare facility. It may also refer to the integration of health related data present all over a certain boundary or area.
  • Decision making tasks that are involved in healthcare such as the selection of prescription drugs upon the input of symptoms of patient’s state.
  • Education and research related to Health such as the innovation in pharmacology and also in the methods of evaluating diseases and performing surgeries.
  • Technological aspects that support health. These may involve tests that assess a person’s health. Technological advancements have made it possible that medical tests be conducted as such advanced levels that the health of an individual may be evaluated.
  • Maintenance of Health Data. This data is in a vast range. Its variations extend from small clinics to large hospital databases. The health services in an organization and those related to the manufacturing of medical technologically advanced devices are all included in the category of health related data.