Meet the Consumer Health Informatics Subspecialty!
Pharmacy is a profession in healthcare. Pharmacy informatics is a specialty within this profession. It is not yet one of the recognized specialty areas by the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties, but it is a specialty nonetheless. Consumer health informatics is a subspecialty within informatics, and can be integrated with pharmacy or any other profession in healthcare. My path has led to immersion in the possibilities associated with consumer health informatics.
Consumer health informatics (CHI), like medical informatics, health informatics, and pharmacy informatics, suffers from a bit of an identity crisis – or at least a lack of consensus terminology. The two working definitions for CHI that I am particular to are:
“…analyses consumers' needs for information; studies and implements methods of making information accessible to consumers; and models and integrates consumers' preferences into medical information systems.”
British Medical Journal article by Eysenbach
"…studies from a patient/consumer perspective the use of electronic information and communication to improve medical outcomes and the health care decision-making process."
American Medical Informatics Association’s
One of the most attractive elements of CHI was also summarized quite nicely in the review by Eysenbach:
“Consumer informatics stands at the crossroads of other disciplines, such as nursing informatics, public health, health promotion, health education, library science, and communication science…it is paving the way for health care in the information age.”
There is much to appreciate in the inherent collaborative and participatory nature of the CHI subspecialty. Because of its characteristics, aspects of Web 2.0/social media are also frequently included under the CHI umbrella. The interdisciplinary approach of CHI was born out of necessity and offers the chance to capitalize on the strengths of multiple professions and ultimately improve outcomes. I look forward to exploring the promise of CHI and its potential impact on the constantly changing world of healthcare.
@kevinclauson
[Note: Thanks to Chad Hardy (pillguy) for the invitation as a blog contributor at RxInformatics.com]
Comments
CHI
Interesting view Kevin. I think it's interesting to note that consumer informatics drives other informatic disciplines. Let's face it, the healthcare industry is always playing catch-up to the consumer market. Why not create a specialty that is truly interdisciplinary and quite possibly on the cutting edge of healthcare technology.
APIA
I think we need to form the American Pharmacy Informatics Association. Set up our own Certification and Training. Who cares about BPS?
Mouthful of acronyms leads to answers?
Hopefully these are some of the questions we can help address and ultimately answer through the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), Section of Pharmacy and Informatics (SOPIT) Section Advisory Group on Pharmacy Informatics Education (SAG-PIE). There are a lot of motivated people in this group and maybe the recent Midyear session will provide the impetus to accelerate the process.