Global Health Informatics

Introduction

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.

This 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." 

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.

The course is designed to help you: 

1. Reflect and appreciate the scope of global health informatics.
2. Understand the ways in which Information Technology can be used to assist in the production, collection and collation of information.
3. Understand the ways in which Information Technology can be made available to assist policymakers, clinicians and citizens in accessing information.
4. Identify potential uses of health informatics in both the clinical and public health areas in your setting.
5. Appreciate the importance of evaluating health informatics programmes, and the value of some of the evaluations that have been performed to date.

This course is an Open Online Course (OOC) that was developed by Professor Richard Heller. It has been adopted from Peoples-uni and was further developed by NextGenU.org (NGU). It was sponsored in part by the Annenberg Physician Training Program (APTP).

There are five (5) modules to complete, which include:

Module 1: What Is Information/Informatics and Why Is It Important?
Module 2: Produce, Collect and Collate Information
Module 3: Access Information - Make It Available
Module 4: Use Information for Evidence-Based Practice and Policy
Module 5: Evaluating the Benefits of Health Informatics

Engaging with this course

• To register for this course, complete the registration form. Begin the course with Module 1. For each lesson, read the description. 
• Each lesson comprises introductory remarks. You can click on the collections of resources in each module. 
• There is a forum on each Module for reflection, and you will be able to add a new topic or respond to a previous one. You may want to share your learning from this and other readings, comment on the topics from your own experience, comment on others' posts, or provide feedback on how we can improve the content and/or presentation.
• There is a final quiz to assess your understanding of some important concepts. Click on the hyperlinks to take you to these items in each topic.

Requirements to obtain the certificate 

You may browse this course for free to learn for your personal enrichment. There are no requirements.

To obtain a certificate, a learner must successfully complete:

• All reading requirements
• All discussion forums
• The final exam with a minimum of 70% and a maximum of 3 attempts and
• The self and course evaluation forms

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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.

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. 

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 policymakers, clinicians and citizens in accessing 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.

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.

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 maximize the potential of this field through careful evaluation.

Click here to start the Final Examination.

.http://ojphi.org/ojs/index.php/ojphi/article/view/5931/4760 systems that improve communication between institutions, assist in ordering and managing medications and help monitor and detect patients who might abandon care, show promise. Evaluations of personal digital assistants and mobile devices convincingly demonstrate that such devices can be very effective in improving data collection time and quality. From HEALTH AFFAIRS 29, NO. 2 (2010): 244–251. E-Health Technologies Show Promise In Developing Countries.