Customer Reviews

Medical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine (Health Informatics)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This second edition of Shortliffe's textbook is an excellent overview of the field. Although I used it as a course text, it is extremely readable. The chapters are not overly technical, as befits an introductory text, but by no means is this a "Dummmies" book either.

There are now a variety of introductory/overview books on medical informatics. However, of the ones I've read (including van Bemmel's Handbook of Medical Informatics and Coiera's Guide to Medical Informatics), this book is by far the best.

This seems to be the gold standard in the field, and deservedly so. I've seen it selected as the book for almost every intro Informatics course I've been exposed to. I've read all but three chapters (13,15, and 21) of it and found that in general the chapters are quite strong. Because it is an edited volume the quality and style of the chapters are mixed. The chapters are, without exception, meticulously sourced making the references section a real gem. The questions at the end of the chapter wouldn't be close to adequate for a self study book (I'd say they are only slightly more than perfunctory).

I think this book has two limitations:
- Lacks any substantive cross chapter continuity (on the upside this means it can really be read in almost any order).
- The chapter length to depth ratio is unfavorable. At an average of 40ish pages the chapters should really be able to get into real technical depth; instead, it seems to gloss over the technical details with repetitions of "gee whiz" platitudes.

I think this book has one annoyance:
- A lot of the contents (particularly in the first few chapters of the book) have an "in the future we'll all drive flying cars" feel that makes them more dated than the publication date would suggest.

Bottom line: best-of-breed, recommended.

I didn't think I'd like this book very much when I found I had to order it for a class I'm taking (Introduction to Medical Informatics). It's fairly dense, but I found that it is dense in a good kind of way. Each chapter reads like a good overview of the subject. As I've progressed through the book I find very little lacking. It offers nearly complete information on every aspect of the subject matter. Someone who didn't know something ever existed before reading this book could come away with a good grasp of the subject and have references to follow up for a more complete view. It doesn't read like literature, but thankfully it is broken up into small easily digestible sections.

There are probably other texts that are easier to read because of style. This one is very strong on content and won't leave gaps. It might have you asking the right kind of question when finished, but that is the whole point, isn't it?

I am using this book in a graduate level course and find it to be very complete in its discussion of this broad topic. The author, Shortliffe, is now President of the American Medical Informatics Association. If you purchase this book, you will be doing best to get just the textbook, and not the digital version, the so-called "Upgrade" to read online.

The annotations features for highlighting and leaving bookmarks are almost always "temporarily unavailable". I was surprised to find out today that I had reached the "usage limit" on reading my book online, and was denied further access. That was a pretty big shock to me, as I had paid to be able to access the book when i did not want to carry around the rather heavy textbook.

When you are locked out of the book, you are not given any method for rectifying this except to send an email to customer service.

I won't be purchasing the digital media "Upgrades" to any more Amazon books.

Despite that experience, you will be very happy you bought this if you have any interest in biomedical informatics. Note that this does focus on the "medical" side of biomedical informatics, and is not a bioinformatics primer.

This is a great book for those interested in the field. The downside is that it is in print and quickly becomes dated. Nonetheless, I would recommend it if you don't want to go searching the internet for all of this.

I just started this book, and it seems to be a decent introduction to the field. I understand it must be difficult to write an intro text that serves a wide audience, but two things:

1. A little verbose. I have read 3 chapters so far, and it seems like the book does not need to be quite so thick.

2. The diagrams in chapter 1 especially are an embarrassment to textbook writers, editors, and publishers, and an insult to anyone who purchased this book. If anyone is wondering what makes students so angry at spending $100 for a textbook, note the gem of a diagram on page 17. It's a mess of squiggly lines connecting boxes of text. What's that thick black line running through the center? Some sort of trend in a graph? No, it's the Internet, in what is presumably a network diagram. It really looks like it was drawn by someone in MS Paint, who was unable to discover the tool that draws a straight line.

3 stars because I found the text useful, but really, someone should be ashamed to have published this with such miserable diagrams.

This book covers comprehensive topics in biomedical informatics and its applications. In particular, UNIT I (Recurrent themes in biomedical informatics) presents biomedical knowledge which are essential to computer professionals for effective system development. On the other hand, UNIT II (Biomedical informatics applications) provides useful illustrations of current information systems in the field. I reckon that the most interesting applications are Consumer Health Informatics and Telehealth; Imaging Systems in Radiology and Clinical Decision Support Systems.

A very comprehensive book that touches on the various hallmarks on how IT, Computer Science, and Healthcare services mingle with each other to formulate different scenarios and postulations of what is and what could be in how an industry is adapting to the ever growing field of medical informatics.

Everyone in the field of medical informatics knows Ed Shortliffe. He has done a lot of pioneering work in the field. However, I think this book was just so-so. It is a brief overview of the field of informatics. I found it difficult to read - nothing in the book "grabs" me.

I wouldn't recommend it, really. It may be worth a look because it is authored by Shortliffe.

The book is an introduction to health informatics .It is extremely theoritical . Health Information systems has a long way to go , and I am sure this book will be out of date in a short while. The paper quality , and diagrams were not that good for the price I paid .
Asaad