Health Care For All | Assignment

Running head: HEALTH CARE
Health care
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1HEALTH CARE
Discussion question 1: Why do we need medical informatics and how does it improve
health care?
Medical or health informatics is an immensely growing field in health care whose
application is increasing with the development of new technology and integration of this
technology to deliver medical care. It is a discipline which deals with the integration of
information science, computer science and health care information. This is required to get access
to information in the most quick and easy manner. Another most important purpose of medical
informatics is to prove effective care to patients. The emergence of this field was seen following
the Affordable Care Act which stated the need for professionals to integrate health care with
electronic health records (EHR) to improve the provision of care. The need for medical
informatics is also important to increase patient’s access to health information, promote shared
knowledge, promote high quality care and decrease the overall health care cost. This has
revolutionized the patient education process (Sweeney, 2017). Snyder et al. (2011) gives the
evidence regarding the utility of informatics on providing clinicians with critical information and
sharing the same information with family and friends. It has also helped to promote patient-
centered care by providing a mechanism for patient to interact with clinicians about health and
well-being needs. The clinicians in turn can integrate this information to improve patient care.
Health informatics has played a pivotal role in improving the quality of care. The
technology boom has helped informatics to evolve and this has resulted in positive outcomes in
health care such as enhanced care delivery, improved health outcomes and advanced patient
education. Moore & Holmes (2016) gives a good example regarding how biomedical informatics
has increased access to health information and increased the pace of health care delivery.
Biomedical informatics provides the skill set and the technology required for processing,