Health informatics to enhance the healthcare industry's culture: An extensive analysis of its features, contributions, applications and limitations

Abstract

BackgroundHealth informatics is a fast-growing area in the healthcare sector. It concerns the technologies, tools, equipment, and procedures required to gather, store, retrieve, and use health data and medical data. Healthcare informatics provides patients, nurses, hospital administrators, physicians, insurance providers, and other stakeholders with electronic access to medical records through health information technologies (HIT). Health informatics combines nursing science with data science and analytical disciplines to gather, handle, interpret, and convey data, bringing together specialists and making health information accessible and meaningful. MethodsThis research is an outcome of an extensive scopic review, which has been conducted by identifying research and development through search keywords such as “Health informatics,” “Technologies,” and “Healthcare” from databases of Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and other research platforms. Further, the most relevant papers are identified and studied. FindingsThis paper explores health informatics, its technologies, and their need in the present healthcare domain. It also identifies vital aspects, characteristics, and versatile contributions of health informatics to the healthcare sector. Further, the paper identifies and discusses significant health informatics applications in the healthcare field. Patients' health information can be effectively analysed individually or in groups using health informatics technologies to meet diverse requirements. InterpretationEffective use of health informatics improves practice management as information is quickly shared among healthcare professionals, patients and other stakeholders. Healthcare informatics specialists' knowledge of utilising data to assist choice-making and creating best practices. It enables healthcare organisations to identify specific data offering the appropriate information for the given therapy, procedure, or training. Informatics in healthcare also addresses issues at the macro level of the organisation and also at the personal level of patient care via innovative technologies and best practices.