Public Health Surveillance…in Real-Time

---

Wednesday, August 12th, 2015

• The World Health Organization (WHO) defines public health surveillance as “the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice.” For many with a public health background and great interest in furthering the field of early emergency health detection, they understand the importance of the integration of health IT systems into surveillance methods.

Interdisciplinary Informatics: 4 Backgrounds That Prepare You for a Health Informatics Career

---

Wednesday, July 29nd, 2015

• Health informatics is a broad field with many different opportunities. It only makes sense that those individuals entering biomedical informatics are arriving from a wide variety of backgrounds. An undergraduate career or practical work experience in everything from computer science to social work can go a long way towards preparing for a career in informatics.
  
  Here are four backgrounds that you might run into among the students and faculty at SBMI:
  
  Clinical Practices
  From nursing to pharmacy, the hands-on experience that comes with a clinical background not only provides an intimate familiarity with the field of health care, but also its potential for the future. Many of SBMI’s students, faculty, and staff have spent quality time on the hospital floor or within private practices. They’re cognizant of the current challenges in health care and the incredible opportunities that biomedical informatics provides.

The Americans with Disabilities Act's 25th Anniversary

---

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will celebrate its 25th anniversary on July 26. Prior to President George H.W. Bush signing the ADA into law in 1990, people with disabilities could be denied jobs simply because of their disability or rejected from universities because of limited access to necessary resources. For those who could not use stairs, access to many restaurants, libraries and hospitals was out of the question.
  
  The ADA ensured that people with disabilities had full civil rights and could not be discriminated against solely because of their disability. For millions of people who are disabled, and for their family members, the ADA guarantees the disabled access to buildings, more inclusion in the workforce and ultimately…a more independent lifestyle.

The History of Health IT Leaders

---

Wednesday, July 15th, 2015

• 
  
  SBMI will celebrate its 20th birthday in 2017 and since its inception, our school has been working to create progress in the field of health technology. Since 1997, when our school began offering graduates degrees in health informatics, the industry standards and practices have greatly evolved. This week's infographic takes us all on a brief trip back in time to see the many ways in which the field of health IT has grown as we review what landmark events have influenced the industry over the last 25 years.

Mobile Devices Enhance Patient Connections

---

Wednesday, July 8th, 2015

• 
  
  In 2015, a patient can confirm her or his appointment or update contact information from a smartphone, tablet or even a watch. As technology is enhanced, users have increasing amounts of access to important information; this includes consumer healthcare information.
  
  For the past four years, HIMSS has conducted an annual mobile technology survey to determine how healthcare organizations use mobile technology to support access to information every day. Not surprisingly, 90% of the organizations that responded to the survey indicated that their staff members use mobile devices to engage with patients. This week’s infographic gives us more insight into how mobile devices are changing the way healthcare organization connect with patients.

What Does It Take To Be An Informatician?

---

Wednesday, July 1st, 2015

written by Todd Johnson, PhD

• Informatics is the science of information. Informaticians identify, define, and solve information problems. Determining whether one drug is better than another drug at treating a certain type of breast cancer is a clinical research question. Developing a method to automatically identify possible drugs for treating breast cancer from the published literature is an information problem.
  
  Another example of an information problem is to automatically create meaningful patient overviews from a patient’s electronic medical record. What information constitutes a good overview? How does “good” depend on the goal of the person looking at the overview? How can you extract meaningful information from the free text in the chart? How can you best present the information so that a person can quickly grasp it?

Two Ways Health Informatics May Save Lives this Summer

---

Wednesday, June 24th, 2015

• 
  
  By now summer is in full swing. Beach parties, vacations, cookouts and summer camp are all welcome diversions from the day-to-day. But summer also brings a host of health hazards, from heat stroke to increased skin cancer risk. Here are two ways health informatics will be used to save lives this summer.
  
  Mapping Heat Vulnerability
  Phoenix, Arizona has even Houston beat on heat. Average highs are in the 100s from June through September.

How to Choose the Right EHR

---

Wednesday, June 17th, 2015

• 
  
  UT Physicians is on a quest to find a new EHR vendor. In fact, UTHealth students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in the process as they hold open vendor demonstrations in July. So that got us thinking; what factors should be considered when choosing an EHR?
  
  What is best suited for an independent practice is not necessarily a good fit for a large health network and with EHR implementation costs ranging from $15,000 to $70,000 per provider, a lot is at stake. eScribe recently compiled many of the EHR stats and industry findings into this helpful infographic to help those in search of the ideal EHR.

Roadmap to Interoperability

---

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015

• 
  
  While attending health IT conferences, one might hear the term interoperability used quite frequently. HIMSS defines interoperability as “the extent to which systems and devices can exchange data, and interpret that shared data.” But for many professionals in the health IT industry, obtaining interoperability seems inconceivable.
  
  The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) released a draft of its Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap earlier this year and invited the public to comment as well. The response revealed both support for the proposal as well as concern that government intervention was not necessary. While the ONC works on integrating the feedback and developing another draft for release later this year, this infographic gives a well-rounded summary of the ONC’s plan for nationwide interoperability.

Tweets by @UTHealth_SBMI