Patients. Ping. Protocols. PHP. Passion.
Debra Wolf, PhD, MSN, BSN, RN is a Professor of Nursing and Healthcare Informatics at Chatham University
As a health professional for over 40 years, I’ve seen many changes. I’ve watched as hospital patients’ rooms have changed from bare walls with up to eight beds to rooms of only one bed, the walls covered in electronics, including oxygen outlets, electronic suction ports, Wi-Fi heart monitors, and electronic IV pumps that control flow rates (and connect to electronic health records). And let’s not forget the new electronic beds that weigh you, speak to you when you try to get up or set off an alarm when you try to get out of bed.
That’s healthcare informatics.
I’ve watched healthcare waiting rooms change from basic painted walls with pictures to lounges with wall-mounted telemonitors that alert family when their loved one moves from the pre-operative room to the operating room to the post-op room to their private patient room. Which is to say that today, healthcare environments offer technologically-enhanced communication that supports not just the patient, but also the family.
In fact, we no longer have to be in a brick and mortar health facility to access health information or to receive healthcare treatments. With the use of the Internet, Wi-Fi, computers, audio/video equipment, mobile apps, etc., we are communicating health information and receiving health services in a variety of virtual ways. Today, an individual can see a medical practitioner, in real time, by clicking a mobile app on their phone from anywhere in the USA.
Health-related technology is advancing faster than the health professional or health organization can keep up with. That’s why academic institutions are beginning to prepare health professionals (in a variety of disciplines) to embrace and use technology. Computerized systems allow professionals to capture, manage and analyze data in brand-new ways. Today we can explore how data can monitor outcomes and correlations (such as using sales data regarding cold medicines to predict a flu epidemic). We can promote healthy living by using alarms on our cell phones as reminders to test our blood sugar levels and to monitor the number of steps we take each day. We have technology that predicts the weather so we can prepare how to dress to meet cold temperatures, reducing the chances of catching a cold.
If you enjoy thinking outside the box, engaging with electronics and health technology, and have a passion for improving the health of people and communities—healthcare informatics may very well be the perfect place for you."
Through Chatham’s Master of Healthcare Informatics (MHI) professionals in health-related positions can join this revolution of envisioning how technology can be used to help make better decisions, to change practices and processes. To change the future. (And, it must be said, to earn high salaries: As of 2015, the overall average salary for health IT professionals was $111,387.52, according to an annual compensation survey by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.)
Read more about exciting healthcare technology innovations—including smart glasses for the visually impaired and a watch that helps with sleep apnea—here and here, and learn more about Chatham’s 30-credit, fully-online MHI here.