The modern healthcare environment has changed dramatically over the past few decades. It has become an information-intensive environment and has shifted its emphasis to technological applications. As a result of these changes, efforts must be made to ensure that future health care professionals are prepared for this environment through the study of medical informatics (hereafter, MI). Modern health care is heavily influenced by advances in information technology (IT).
MI is a rapidly evolving scientific field concerned with the storage, retrieval, and optimal use of biomedical information, data, and knowledge for problem-solving and decision-making in medicine and health care. MI is now integrated with all areas of medicine. Several reasons contribute to the development of this critical discipline:
- The development of computing and IT;
- The use of traditional paper-based methods and the importance of informed decision-making in today’s health care environment (Hass & Holve & Edmunds, 2019).
The applications of MI are numerous, and each application has its potential in healthcare. Clinical informatics applications can be classified for specific patient and application knowledge depending on the type of information used (Hass et al., 2019). Patient-specific information is typically created and used for patient care in health care settings, while medical knowledge-based information is the scientific foundation.
To achieve these goals, medical education must change to meet the demands of scientific and technological advances. Significant changes that have occurred over the past few years are the direct results of advances in communication, including the expansion of the World Wide Web (Hass et al., 2019). Recently, most medical universities have incorporated the Internet as a new tool for teaching. Because of the increasing amount of medical literature available online and the reliance on Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) medical practice, effective information management must be taught to educators and students.
It is worth adding that medical science is rapidly changing. Accordingly, medical students are facing new and unique challenges in medical practice (Hass et al., 2019). Various sources of medical knowledge arise every day. New biological discoveries, especially at the molecular and cellular levels, are also leading to discovering the hidden nature of human biology and its numerous diseases (Lovis & Madsen & Pape-Haugaard, 2020). Technology also plays a vital role in finding new therapeutic and diagnostic tools that require medical professionals to acquire more skills and knowledge. Consequently, medical education has unique opportunities and challenges that affect teaching methods, learning processes, and educational programs (Lovis et al., 2020). These factors are changing the practice of medicine and require changes in medical education in terms of form and content.
Most of today’s medical students demonstrate exemplary skills in practical computer science because they can use e-mail, process texts, and search the Internet for information. However, information management in health care requires a higher level of proficiency (Bansal & Khan & Alam, 2019). Knowledge of MI will help future physicians use clinical information systems and health information resources. For example, students with positive attitudes toward ICTs mastered MI better and had higher average scores (Bansal et al., 2019). There is a meaningful relationship between medical students who are well trained in general informatics and their attitudes toward information and communication technologies.
In conclusion, it must be said that the field of health care is highly dependent on information. Consequently, it is only natural to integrate an MI course into the curriculum of medical students that will allow them to manage medical information in their future practice effectively. In addition, technology has become an integral part of health care practice during patient care. Understanding MI will help future physicians decide what they need to know and how to find what they need to know. In addition, the delivery of medical care relies heavily on the medical literature. The volume of medical literature has increased over the past few decades.
References
Bansal, A. K., Khan, J. I., Alam, S. K. (2019). Introduction to computational health informatics. CRC Press.
Hass, C., Holve, E., Edmunds, M. (2019). Consumer informatics and digital health. Solutions for health and health care. Springer international Publishing.
Lovis, C., Madsen C., Pape-Haugaard. (2020). Digital personalized health and medicine. Proceedings of MIE 2020. IOS Press.