If you made the decision to pursue advanced credentials in health informatics, you made an excellent career move. Health informatics could be the future of healthcare; already, informatics technologies have delivered outstanding healthcare solutions to providers and patients alike, radically improving access and quality of care. Undoubtedly, healthcare institutions around the world will continue to invest in health informatics into the foreseeable future to take full advantage of the power of tech in improving efficiency while ensuring positive outcomes for all.
Of course, health informatics is a relatively new field, and various factors continue to influence how real-world informatics professionals operate. Here are a few trends you may want to watch as you complete your online master’s in health informatics and begin your career in the field.
Health Data Interoperability
Many of the first electronic health records (EHR) systems were developed bespoke for different health institutions. Then, tech companies created EHR solutions available to any healthcare company or provider. Today, because of the legacy of the Affordable Care Act, almost every business in the healthcare industry has a tool for managing EHRs — but almost none of them can work with one another.
EHR systems are designed to organize health information and ensure security of sensitive data, but now that so many health providers have gone digital, it is clear that EHR systems also need interoperability as a key feature. Healthcare providers are in near constant communication with other types of healthcare companies, like pharmacies, insurance providers, hospitals, specialty practices and more. Because removing health data from EHR systems increases the risk of exposure and leaks, it is imperative that EHR systems develop the ability to interface, keeping sensitive information safe as it travels around the healthcare system.
Data Analytics
In recent decades, there has been a general shift in how healthcare providers approach medical services, away from “treat and rehabilitate” and toward “prevent.” Indeed, disease prevention is generally less expensive, less time-consuming, easier and more effective than disease treatments for patients and providers alike. However, to develop preventions and deploy them with efficacy, healthcare providers need to understand which populations are more at risk for certain diseases and what types of preventative actions can be beneficial.
Health informatics professionals are essential in the development and implementation of advanced data analytics tools that can assist providers in offering optimal care to their patients. In addition to understanding health information systems, you should have a good sense of data science and computational modeling, which can help you develop solutions that look for certain health markers and signal the need for certain preventative care. If this idea is especially intriguing to you, you may take data analytics a step further and integrate AI — the next trend on our list.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is still several decades (if not centuries) away from replacing physicians entirely, but already AI has useful applications in the healthcare industry. AI is uniquely good at collecting and analyzing large amounts of data, and as a student of health informatics, you know that healthcare is veritably bursting with disorganized data that providers need help parsing.
Currently, most AI solutions in healthcare are assisting the administrative side, but with proper deployment in health informatics, AI could revolutionize the delivery of health services and radically improve patient health and wellness. For example, when given access to health data, AI tools may be able to identify which patients are at elevated risk for certain diseases, prompting them to participate in additional testing and preventative care. Additionally, there is great promise for AI tools in diagnostics, helping providers identify signs of rarer diseases to keep patients healthy and safe. Health informatics students may want to invest some time into AI courses to improve their skill in adapting and deploying AI solutions in the healthcare space.
Health informatics is a rapidly changing field — for good reason. As new technologies emerge, the healthcare system should adopt the solutions and systems that most benefit providers and patients. By staying abreast of emerging trends, you can contribute to important changes to the healthcare industry and help improve outcomes for all.
