HLTH230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Public Health Informatics, Disease Surveillance, Public Health

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Health Studies
• Course: HLTH230
• Professor: Joon Lee

Document Summary

Sub-fields within hi: any health domain + informatics = hi sub-field, many sub-fields are not mature yet, this course will cover major sub-fields in greater detail. Bioinformatics: deals with biological data, sometimes considered separate from hi. However, increasing overlap between biology and healthcare. Cancer research and treatment: has been a hot field for decades, not everything in bioinformatics is apart of () some parts of bioinformatics do not deal with health, bioinformatics is not a subset of hi. Imaging informatics: deals with medical imaging data. Ct scan, x-ray, mri, ultrasound, etc: not about imaging devices but rather about the data they generate, data-intensive and technology-driven, these can generate a lot of data and are considered one of the more advanced fields. Not entirely true though: physicians are often primary users. Increasingly patients, researchers, and hospital administrators as well: adoption of electronic medical records has come to light in this field.