THE PROBLEM OF THE TANGLED TAXONOMIES
It is often the case that patients or even sometimes clinicians use the words Health Informatics, eHealth, Digital Health interchangeably. Without providing a clear definition for what HI is, it is a non-trivial task to explain the benefits of health information for both patients, practitioners. The verb “To informate” was first coined by Shishana Zubff which referred to it as the process of turning things into information, these may be objects, activities, etc.
DEFINITIONS OF HEALTH INFORMATICS
Health Informatics or more generally clinical informatics is defined as the application of computer science and Health Informatic in a health care setting where they are used as the body of knowledge, methods, and principles to utilize information in a safe, and cost-effective way while improving the quality and effectiveness of health for both individual and populations.
EXISTING TAXONOMIES
Some of the existing taxonomies focused on the glossary of terms and eventually adopted those taxonomy based on users’ search terms. Others, taxonomies either focused on the barriers to adopting HI or the gap between the health and the world of business. Finally, Stagger and Thompson, offered technology, role, and concept-oriented definitions for HI. Based on such categorizations, HI is defined as devices of media that act to improve health, as a clinic-specific discipline or an individual role, and also as a science that has been researched.
DIMENSIONS OF HEALTH INFORMATICS
However, Healthcare and HI are both multidisciplinary, they may involve a wide variety of professionals whose different terminologies, practices, and approaches exacerbate the existing issue of tangled HI taxonomies. On the other hand, the Interdisciplinary nature of the HI can help define common grounds for different professionals. In addition, HI may help the patient to manage his/her health without the need for the physician’s inputs by defining the roles and possible impacts on patients’ health. More importantly, HI may let users understand the level of practitioner’ expertise. It is worth noting that HI is a technology that is implementation-dependent, meaning that it may come in different shapes depending on the capacity and level of adaptation of a certain setting with the technology.
Next, is the level of data granularity. This means HI may be classified based on the type of technology or sometimes based on the granularity of the input data. Lastly, institutions and related societies/communities do have a crucial role in defining what HI is. Hence, regulations, verifications, and accreditation may also be part of such taxonomies.
All in all, a clear definition of HI and a proper categorization of its sub-disciplines may help all the stakeholders of healthcare (Doctors, patients, organizations, educators) to better understand, build, implement and share knowledge.
Refrence:
Barrett, D., Liaw, S. T., & de Lusignan, S. (2014). Unravelling the tangled taxonomies of health informatics. Informatics in primary care, 21(3), 152–155. https://doi.org/10.14236/jhi.v21i3.78
