Healthcare Industry Blog By Mark Wechsler

Informatics — Finally Getting Respect

November 11, 2010

If you missed it, Modern Healthcare recently announced its inaugural list of Top 25 Clinical Informaticists.  Healthcare informatics is finally getting the recognition and respect it has sorely lacked in the past.

Healthcare informatics is the intersection of information science, health care, and computer technology for the purpose of optimizing the delivery of care.  It blends information and telecommunication technology with clinical guidelines, medical terminology, and advanced diagnostic equipment to improve the acquisition, transport, and delivery of information.  Informatics is being applied to all aspects of healthcare for the purpose of improving patient outcomes while increasing productivity and effectiveness at all levels of the enterprise. 

Clinical informaticists are people with the formal training and knowledge to understand these varied disciplines and blend them together. With titles such as Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO), they were once thought of as the “geek docs.”  Informaticists have the unique ability to understand the “1’s and 0’s” of IT , the intricacies  of telecommunication systems, and how to integrate their use within the complexities of medical science and healthcare delivery.  In almost all cases, these are physicians and nurses who act as translators, assuring IT understands the user community’s needs and that the users understand what and how technology can assist them.

For many of us in the world of telecommunications, we have not spent adequate time or effort to understand or engage with the informaticist community.  Perhaps it is simply oversight. More likely it is because we tend to engage and work with those we are most comfortable with – IT and Telecom.  Modern Healthcare’s recognition of clinical informaticists in indicative of significant changes in our industry.  The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) has made informatics a cornerstone of healthcare reform, and clinical informaticists are leading the way. These are the people that have the ability to understand the value technology can deliver.  They understand SIP, sequenced apps, and Dynamic Communication Processing.  Most importantly, they can help us translate and apply the technical capabilities into pragmatic communication services designed to accelerate information flow – speeding care delivery, staff efficiency, and improving the quality of care.

Seek out the clinical informaticists. He/she speaks your language and appreciates what you have to say.  They are most likely working on projects that can benefit from real time communication capabilities inherent within Avaya Aura™ and multi-media collaboration services such as The Flare Experience.  Most importantly, they will help you identify and translate telecommunications technology into recognizable value from the user community’s view.

Mark Wechsler — Cross Healthcare Industry Director

Back to Archive >>