Dr. Steven Dain (Director)

Health informatics refers to “the field that concerns itself with the cognitive, information processing and communications tasks of medical practice, education and research, including the information science and the technology to support the tasks.” It is the art and science of organizing knowledge of human health and disease to make it useful for decision support and problem solving.

1. Information retrieval from structured and unstructured biomedical sources
2. Principles of biomedical database design (for accuracy and efficiency) Database and systems design in support of health sciences research
3. User interface design for education, research and healthcare environments
1. Graphical user interfaces
2. Usability engineering
4. Standards for naming and coding information
5. Clinical information systems
6. Expert systems– encoding the knowledge of human experts and applying it in goal-directed reasoning
7. Decision Analysis
1. Bayesian and non-Bayesian methods for comparing probability and utility of health related outcome
8. Specialized systems
1. Recording and analysis of physiological signals—ECG, EEG, EMG
2. Anesthesiology and critical care information systems– automated recordkeeping
3. Telemedicine—diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, education
4. Cyberphysical Systems

Current work in the department includes the development of international standards for anesthesia terminology in cooperation with the International Organization for Terminology in Anesthesia (IOTA) and the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organization. (IHTSDO), Web based E-Learning projects, implementation of the Electronic Medical Record for Pre-admission Clinic, International Anesthesia and Critical Care Equipment Standards Development, and work with the MD PNP consortium. (www.mdpnp.org)