Data privacy and security
The Health Informatics Series is directed to healthcare professionals who are lead- ing the transformation of health care by using information and knowledge. Launched in 1988 as “Computers in Health Care”, to offer a broad range of titles: some addressed to specifi c professions such as nursing, medicine, and health administra- tion; others to special areas of practice such as trauma and radiology; still other books in the series focused on interdisciplinary issues, such as the computer based patient record, electronic health records, and networked healthcare systems.
Renamed “Health Informatics” in 1998 to refl ect the rapid evolution in the disci- pline known as health informatics, the series continues to add titles that contribute to the evolution of the fi eld. In the series, eminent experts, serving as editors or authors, offer their accounts of innovations in health informatics. Increasingly, these accounts go beyond hardware and software to address the role of information in infl uencing the transformation of healthcare delivery systems around the world. The series also increasingly focuses on the users of the information and systems: the organizational, behavioral, and societal changes that accompany the diffusion of information technology in health services environments.
Developments in healthcare delivery are constant; most recently developments in proteomics and genomics are increasingly becoming relevant to clinical decision making and emerging standards of care. The data resources emerging from molecu- lar biology are beyond the capacity of the human brain to integrate and beyond the scope of paper-based decision trees. Thus, bioinformatics has emerged as a new fi eld in health informatics to support emerging and ongoing developments in molec- ular biology. Translational informatics supports acceleration, from bench to bed- side, i.e. the appropriate use of molecular biology research fi ndings and bioinformatics in clinical care of patients.
At the same time, further continual evolution of the fi eld of health informatics is refl ected in the introduction of concepts at the macro or health systems delivery level with major national initiatives in many countries related to concepts such as electronic health records (EHRs) and personal health records; public health infor- matics; and data analytics, eHealth and digital health with the associated data, ter- minology and messaging standards essential to clinical interoperability.
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We have consciously retained the series title Health Informatics as the single umbrella term that encompasses both the microscopic elements of bioinformatics and the macroscopic aspects of large national health information systems. Ongoing changes to both the micro and macro perspectives on health informatics will con- tinue to shape health services in the twenty-fi rst century. By making full and cre- ative use of the technology to tame data and to transform information, Health Informatics will foster the development and use of new knowledge in health care. As coeditors, we pledge to support our professional colleagues and the series read- ers as they share advances in the emerging and exciting fi eld of health informatics.
Victoria, BC, Canada Kathryn J. Hannah, PhD, RN Dublin, Ireland Pamela Hussey , RN, RCN, MEd, MSc, PhD Halifax, NS, Canada Margaret Ann Kennedy , RN, BScN, MN, PhD,
CPHIMS-CA, PMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner Baltimore, MD, USA Marion J. Ball , EdD, FACMI, AMIA
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