The Budding Scope of Health Informatics in India

This modern age of information combined with the rapid globalization has brought in tremendous changes into the healthcare industry. With the need for acquiring and assessing information becoming vital in all sectors of healthcare, new methods and technologies are adopted at all levels of the healthcare delivery system. In that direction, health informatics is an emerging technology, which is though at the nascent stage in India, is gradually spreading its wings. The rapid development of biomedical research and clinical medicine has created a great scope and potential for this field in India. Moreover, the penetration of communications and information into all aspects of healthcare services and delivery is making health informatics a promising career for many.

Earlier in India, most of the healthcare delivery systems used to follow manual record keeping but today, there is a good telecommunication infrastructure that aids in collecting and storing of information with ease. New technologies are becoming an integral part of the healthcare system, and health informatics is an important contributor to it. Indian policymakers have started realizing the importance of health informatics, including Telemedicine and e-Health, in delivering healthcare services. With the increasing demand for skilled and trained manpower in this field, health informatics in India is sure to find its prospective way ahead in the health sector.

About Health Informatics

Health informatics is a new academic discipline that bridges information science and healthcare for storage, retrieval, and optimal usage of processed health information, data, and medical knowledge which is used for healthcare related problem solving and decision making. It is indeed a fusion of healthcare, business administration, and information technology in all aspects of clinical care, nursing, and overall patient health experience. Health informatics uses various resources, devices, and scientific methods to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of data and information in health and biomedicine.

In general, healthcare informatics focuses on implementation and optimization of the clinical health information systems, creating an infrastructure that establishes a connection and enables the flow of critical information to and fro within the patient care system. It allows seamless integration of requirements from all departments of the organization into one user-friendly system. Health informatics professionals play a major role in designing and developing information systems to meet these requirements of healthcare management. They develop and oversee high-tech healthcare information systems in the organization for real-time communication, diagnosis, and consultation of healthcare services, using audio, video, and web-based technologies.

Health Informatics (HI) is all about how health information is technically acquired, transmitted and utilized for various purposes within the healthcare sector. It deals with interdisciplinary components such as health systems, advanced statistics, emerging technologies, epidemiology, and health management, focusing on how information technology, informatics principles, and information systems are applied for healthcare delivery. This integrated discipline has specialized domains such as management science, management engineering principles, and more.

Development and use of health informatics benefits the healthcare organization in many ways. It can increase the transparency and efficiency of healthcare governance in all aspects of patient care.  With health informatics, it is possible to improve the availability and delivery of public healthcare services to the rural and remote localities. It also acts as an instrument in continuing education, enabling health workers to stay informed of advanced medical science and be trained accordingly.

The prospects of health Informatics are broad as there is an immense need to understand and adopt emerging new technologies for continuous improvement. For this, there is an utmost need for efficiently skilled and trained professionals who are knowledgeable in the field of health informatics.

It is important that the medical curriculum should include health informatics and related technologies as a part of learning to aid medical and paramedical students to become good users of modern healthcare systems. This is important so as to establish an operational synergy in the healthcare sector and to enable the members of the healthcare delivery systems to be able to adopt and apply medical informatics and use it optimally for their services.

Health informatics as a career option is gaining attention today, and in that direction, the International Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) located in New Delhi, is making it possible for the aspirants to pursue quality education in the said domain and brighten their career prospects in the same.

IIHMR intends to instill both academic knowledge and practical skills in students to enable them to understand the various aspects in the adoption and application of healthcare informatics for improving and strengthening the quality of overall healthcare services. IIHMR specifically provides its students the scientific education based on information technology, complimenting the theoretical knowledge of health informatics.

The institute offers a two-year full-time Post Graduate Diploma in Hospital and Health Management which is an NBA Accredited Program, approved by AICTE and is recognized as MBA equivalent by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU). The program holds specializations in Hospital Management, Health Management, and Health Information Technology. IIHMR aims at improving the practical skills and analytical approaches of the students in identifying and delivering the healthcare IT needs, enabling and equipping them to perform with efficiency and ease.

Health informatics is such an offbeat yet a potential career alternative for those wanting to make an entry into the healthcare IT sector; and IIHMR is making it possible for them to carve bright prospects for themselves by imparting them with industry-centric, high quality, practical based education that is at par with the international standards.