Health Informatics and Data Analytics

Health data – including observational data collected in clinical care, administrative reporting data, and personal sensor-derived data – is voluminous, diverse, and complex, creating tremendous opportunities to gain insight into disease, its progression, and best personalised treatments. Health informatics and data analytics are central to the success of modern healthcare organizations.

Health Informatics is the practice of acquiring, studying and managing health data and applying medical concepts in conjunction with information technology systems to help clinicians provide better healthcare. Health data analytics involves the analysis of medical data to identify patterns, trends, and insights that can inform clinical decision making and improve patient outcomes.

Modern computer technology combined with data has arguably the greatest potential to improve public health and individual patient outcomes. In particular, decision support and data analytics based on artificial Intelligence algorithms are transforming the way we predict, prevent, detect and manage diseases. A key underpinning of this movement is illustrated by the increasing number of worldwide healthcare systems adopting digital health records.