Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine [Paperback]

Enrico Coiera (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1997

The role of information and communication technologies in healthcare is increasing at a dramatic rate, and now affects most aspects of clinical practice. While these technologies promise to revolutionize the delivery of healthcare, many clinicians are unaware of their potential applications or limitations. This guide presents an easy-to-read overview of the subject, and explains basic concepts in a non-technical manner. Since these technologies continue to develop at a rapid rate, the book is designed to familiarize clinicians with the more fundamental aspects and to enable them to make informed decisions about the application of this technology. The guide is written for the general medical reader and assumes little or no familiarity with medical informatics. It should also be useful for medical students as well as allied healthcare workers and research scientists who need to understand or apply these technologies in their practice. Topics include: the place of information and communication in clinical practice; the impact on clinical practice; the Internet, World Wide Web, and the Information Superhighway including OncoLink, WebPath, Cochrane Collaboration ; Telemedicine and personal communication technologies including Email and mobile telephony; computer support for evidence-based clinical protocols; terminology and clinical coding; data-mining and knowledge discovery methods in research; and expert advisory and intelligent patient monitoring systems and long term technology trends.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Such a text should be 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."--JAMA

"[an] elegant and lucid textbook...4 stars (excellent)"--British Medical Journal

"most clinicians know very little about what computers could do in a clinical setting and have therefore not been able to guide the development of systems down a clinical path. This book could help change that..."--The British Journal of Psychiatry

About the Author

E. Coiera, Senior Research Project Manager, Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Stoke Gifford, Bristol.

Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Hodder Arnold Publishers; 1 edition (January 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0412757109
• ISBN-13: 978-0412757105
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,738,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good overview of medical informatics, September 23, 1998

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine (Paperback)

This 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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Place to Start in Medical Informatics, June 13, 2000

By 

Seumas Hyslop - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine (Paperback)

This 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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb introduction and overview, February 6, 2000

By 

Jim Walker (Hershey, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine (Paperback)

This 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.