Informatics: The Frontier of Innovation in Health and Healthcare

Abstract

The purpose of public health and healthcare is to create healthier populations. The purpose of innovation in healthcare is to accelerate the transformation of the work processes and economic models required to improve health. The use of information technology and telecommunications, and especially of health informatics, is critically important to these goals. It is an inspiring and highly productive frontier for engineering, science, and human behavior, and is the most direct path to unleashing transformative and beneficial innovations in healthcare. I believe, however, that it is under-appreciated in terms of its potential. Innovations such as these are often disruptive, and therefore require strong scientific, public, and private health support. In this article, I focus on four tectonic shifts in the nature of innovations in health informatics. I would encourage students, young faculty, and researchers to broaden their understanding of the range of opportunities in this field, and to consider these tectonic shifts as fundamental pillars for the application of informatics to discovery and large-scale transformation.