From Book News, Inc.
Addressed to the general medical reader assumed to have little or no familiarity with medical informatics or technology. Provides an overview of the current state of information and communication technology in health care. Emphasizes their principled application and the importance of understanding when they are and are not appropriate. Also considers the emerging roles of the Internet and telemedicine. Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR
JAMA, October 21, 1998.
required reading for every physician intending to enter a fellowship program in medical informatics, and it is also highly recommended to every doctor and medical student interested in this emerging medical specialty"
Informatics and Medical Computing Newsletter, Vol.1, No. 6 February 28, 1998
Finally: a textbook on medical informatics that is not profoundly soporific! ... Coiera writes in a conversational style that makes reading the text book a pleasure...I recommend you read this book!
Professor John Fox, Head Biomedical Computing Unit, Imperial Cancer Research Fund, UK, for Cancer Nursing Journal
I believe that there is no other book on medical informatics that is as wide ranging or as readable as this one...Coiera has set out to give us a book which is both comprehensive and relevant to practical clinical work while being lively and widely accessible. In my judgment he has succeeded.
The British Journal of Psychiatry (1998), 172 368-369
Most clinicians know very little about what computers could do and have therefore not been able to guide the development of systems down a clinical path. This book could help change that... I propose that in each hospital a staff member should take a special interest in IT and that a copy of this book be presented to them.
Book Description
Information and communication technologies now affect most aspects of healthcare. The Guide presents an easy-to-read overview of the subject, and explains basic concepts in a non-technical manner. Throughout the text, there is a strong emphasis on the principled application of technologies and understanding when such applications are, and are not, appropriate. It also covers the emerging roles of the Internet and Telemedicine, and integrates them into the overall informatics framework. The Guide is written for the general medical reader, and assumes little or no familiarity with informatics or technology. It will also be useful for medical students, as well as allied healthcare workers, medical information specialists and research scientists.
Book Info
Nontechnical overview of the basic concepts of informatics and telemedicine. Discusses the applications for technologies and the roles of the Internet and telemedicine in healthcare. For health care professionals and medical informatics students. Softcover.
About the Author
Dr. Coiera is a Senior Research Project Manager at Hewlett-Packard's Bristol Research Laboratory. He is a medical graduate of the University of Sydney and holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of New South Wales. An active researcher in Medical Informatics for over a decade, his past publications focus on the Internet, artificial intelligence and expert systems, machine learning and clinical communication behaviour. Rating 4.5
A Great Place to Start in Medical InformaticsThis book is a good place to start if you're unsure of medical informatics and need some direction. It's helpful to get the book, read it, and then go to the references for further information on the topics that interest you.I found the book surprisingly readable - the authors style makes it easy to read chapter after chapter with relative ease, far more so than other medical informatics books available. It's not an exhaustive book by any means, but I couldn't recommend a better place to test the water, and see if there's anything in Medical Informatics that grabs you. Superb introduction and overviewThis is the finest overview of medical informatics in print. Most such texts discuss the issues within informatics and approaches toward their solution. Coiera provides a cogent discussion of why the issues arise, how they interact with each other, and what they mean for clinicians and informaticians. The author's thought and language are remarkably clear and engaging. The discussion is set squarely in the context of healthcare (although more concrete clinical examples would aid clinicians who come to the book at the beginning of their work in informatics). It is informed by a deep understanding of research in medical informatics and computing. The book is an excellent introduction to the subject for clinicians, and I know very few informaticians whose understanding of the field and the specific problems within it would not be deepened and enriched by reading it.A good overview of medical informaticsThis book provides a good overview of medical informatics. The concepts are introduced in a logical fashion, so that the chapters build on one another. I would recommend it to others as an introductory text. I wished for greater detail in some of the chapters (such as the ones on coding). I also found some of his explanations of models confusing/overly complicated. The chapter on the internet I found least helpful, perhaps because it provided little new information for me. The last section, on intelligent clinical decision support, was very sketchy, and the different approaches not well explained. This was especially true of the chapter on intelligent systems. On the minor complaint side, I found the lack of clear paragraph distinctions irritating, and some of the figures added nothing to the text and could have been left out.Overall, it is a reasonable, readable, introduction to a broad subject. |
