Medical Informatics (MI) is the application of informatics tools and purposes to medical information. It integrates state-of-the art knowledge about information technologies and its applications to health care. As medical knowledge continues to expand rapidly, as the demands for more efficient coordination of patient data become paramount, and as the pressures for improved practice and application of evidence based medicine increase, medical informatics will have increasing influence in our working lives as clinicians. Medical Informatics deals with the entire domain of medicine and health care, from computer-based patient records to image processing and from primary care practices to hospitals and regions of health care.
Future of Medical Informatics is very bright in all aspects. Medical Informatics provides a comprehensive survey of current work performed to develop information technology for the clinical workplace. It deals with the acquisition of data from patients, processing and storage of data in computers, and the transformation from data into information data. Medical informatics is at the centre of the overall objectives, linking such areas as knowledge management, guidance on best practice, education of professionals and the public, and the use of new communication and computer technologies. One of the major applications of medical informatics has been the implementation and use of expert systems to predict medical diagnoses based upon a set of symptoms.
Medical Informatics means managing medical and health care through information science and technology. Like medicine, MI is also multidisciplinary.With the advancement in information technology, telemedicine has become an important part of medical practice. This method of distance management in medical and health care not only benefits patients but also medical practitioners. Medical informatics concerns the collection, storage, communication, retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of information. Medical informatics is a young subject so there is much to be researched. Electronic patient records, terminology, access to information on the internet, decision support, quality assurance, medical communication systems, and electronic publishing are just some of the areas that still require much investigation.