The practice of modern medicine requires sophisticated information technologies with which to manage patient information, plan diagnostic procedures, interpret laboratory results, and conduct research. This book focuses on the role of computers in the provision of medical services. Inspired by a Stanford University training program, it fills the need for a high quality text in computers and medicine. It meets the growing demand by practitioners, researchers, and students for a comprehensive introduction to key topics in the field. Completely revised and expanded, this work includes several new chapters filled with brand new material. This book will provide both a conceptual framework and a practical approach for the implementation and management of IT used to improve the delivery of health care. It provides the conceptual base needed to comprehend and utilize medical informatics through easy to understand examples that demonstrate how computers assist in the delivery of health care.

Autorentext
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University Medical Center.

Zusammenfassung
This series is directed to healthcare professionals who are leading the transformation of health care by using information and knowledge. Launched in 1988 as Computers in Health Care, the series offers a broad range of titles: some addressed to specific prof- sions such as nursing, medicine, and health administration; others to special areas of practice such as trauma and radiology. Still other books in the series focus on interd- ciplinary issues, such as the computer-based patient record, electronic health records, and networked healthcare systems. Renamed Health Informatics in 1998 to reflect the rapid evolution in the discipline, the series will continue to add titles that contribute to the evolution of the field. In the series, eminent experts, serving as editors or authors, offer their accounts of inno- tions in health informatics. Increasingly, these accounts go beyond hardware and so- ware to address the role of information in influencing the transformation of healthcare delivery systems around the world. The series also will increasingly focus on peop- ware and organizational, behavioral, and societal changes that accompany the dif- sion of information technology in health services environments.

Inhalt
Recurrent Themes in Biomedical Informatics.- The Computer Meets Medicine and Biology: Emergence of a Discipline.- Biomedical Data: Their Acquisition, Storage, and Use.- Biomedical Decision Making: Probabilistic Clinical Reasoning.- Cognitive Science and Biomedical Informatics.- Essential Concepts for Biomedical Computing.- System Design and Engineering in Health Care.- Standards in Biomedical Informatics.- Natural Language and Text Processing in Biomedicine.- Imaging and Structural Informatics.- Ethics and Health Informatics: Users, Standards, and Outcomes.- Evaluation and Technology Assessment.- Biomedical Informatics Applications.- Electronic Health Record Systems.- Management of Information in Healthcare Organizations.- Consumer Health Informatics and Telehealth.- Public Health Informatics and the Health Information Infrastructure.- Patient-Care Systems.- Patient-Monitoring Systems.- Imaging Systems in Radiology.- Information Retrieval and Digital Libraries.- Clinical Decision-Support Systems.- Computers in Medical Education.- Bioinformatics.- Biomedical Informatics in the Years Ahead.- Health Care Financing and Information Technology: A Historical Perspective.- The Future of Computer Applications in Biomedicine.