Medical informatics : computer applications in health care and biomedicine. / Editores, Edward H. Shortliffe, Leslie E. Perreault, Gio Wiederhold, Lawrence M. Fagan

This book is written as a text so that it can be used in formal courses, but we have adopted a broad view of the population for whom it is intended. Thus, it may be used not only by students of medicine and of the other health professions but also by future medical-computing professionals as an introductory text as well as a text for self-study and for reference by practitioners. The book is probably too detailed for use in a 2- or 3-day continuing-education course, although it could be introduced as a reference for further independent study. Our principal goal in writing this text is to teach concepts in medical informatics-the study of biomedical information and its use in decision making-and to illustrate them in the context of descriptions of representative systems that are in use today or that taught us lessons in the past. As you will see, medical informatics is more than the study of computers in medicine, and we have organized the book to emphasize this point. Chapter 1 first sets the stage for the rest of the book by providing a glimpse of the future, defining important terms and concepts, describing the content of the field, explaining the connections between medical informatics and related disciplines, and discussing the forces that have influenced research in medical informatics and its integration into medical practice. Broad issues regarding the nature of data, information, and knowledge pervade all areas of application, as do concepts related to optimal decision-making...