There are many great definitions of clinical informatics. I think my favorite is the one given by AMA as a description of the subspecialty- “Clinical informatics is a subspecialty that transforms health care by analyzing, designing, implementing, and evaluating information and communication systems to improve patient care, enhance access to care, advance individual and population health outcomes, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship.” To get a sense of what other websites that defined clinical informatics said, I created the above word cloud by scraping the top 9 out of 10 results of a “what is clinical informatics” google search. Many of these words are related to using data and technology to improve medicine.
Clinical informatics is a subspecialty that transforms health care by analyzing, designing, implementing, and evaluating information and communication systems to improve patient care, enhance access to care, advance individual and population health outcomes, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship.
AMerican Medical Association – CI fellowship descritpion
The field of Clinical Informatics is honestly quite broad and relatively new. The CI team is often made up of various experts that bring their different knowledge and perspectives. Many of these people include those with different medical backgrounds such as physicians, nurses, etc. However, many non-medical personnel are often involved such as data analysts, engineers, financial analysts, IT personnel and others.
To me, clinical informatics is the bridge between medicine and IT. As a physician in clinical informatics, it is my job to use my medical knowledge to identify needed improvements in healthcare and translating it into IT lingo to achieve a shared goal. There are many talented data analysts, statisticians, information technologist and engineers that do their jobs very well. My job is not meant to replace theirs but to work with them to make sure their work aligns with the needs of medicine. For example, I recently read about a blood-typing chip that was intended to quickly type a patient’s blood for the ABO and Rh groups for rapid transfusions. However, as transfusion trained physician, I know that any patient that is in need for blood and does not have a current type will most like get O positive blood, depending on age and gender. So although an interesting idea, it is not really necessary. Now, if we had something that could identify antibodies to any significant red cell antibodies while also being able to quickly identify compatible blood in a similar time frame, that would be something! I think this is a good example of needing that medical bridge.
for physicians, Clinical Informatics was approved as a subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties in 2010. The American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) and the American Board of Pathology (ABPath) offered the first board certification in 2013. Now there are over 30 ACGME accredited fellowship programs based in various departments such as pathology, internal medicine, emergency medicine and others. Although the fellowships are based in various departments, any specialty can apply meaning that a pathologist can participate in a CI fellowship based in an internal medicine department. Board certification examinations are administered through ABPM.
Lehmann CU, Gundlapalli AV, Williamson JJ, et al. Five Years of Clinical Informatics Board Certification for Physicians in the United States of America. Yearb Med Inform. 2018;27(1):237-242. doi:10.1055/s-0038-1641198
doctordatalyze.com 