Encyclopedia of Healthcare Information Systems

Citation

Cullen, R. (2009), "Encyclopedia of Healthcare Information Systems", Online Information Review, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 391-394. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520910951320

Health informatics, or the application of ICTs to various aspects of health care and health care management, is an emerging interdisciplinary field, bringing together researchers and practitioners from computer science and information management through to clinicians. In the past decade several new journals in the field have emerged, university departments and courses have been established, and book publishers have seized the opportunity to market individual volumes and launch new monograph series. The Idea Group's Medical Information Science Reference series is one such, but it will need to sharpen its act considerably if it is to sustain the high prices charged for both print and online versions of the volumes reviewed here. Of these three, only the first listed here can be wholeheartedly recommended.

Kushniruk and Borycki's Human, Social and Organizational Aspects of Health Information Systems is based on the premise that, despite the dramatic potential of ICTs to transform the delivery of health care in the twenty‐first century, the realisation of this potential has been problematic. Along with many other experts in the field the editors have concluded that “the most serious barriers to achieving widespread improvement in healthcare using information technology are related to human and social aspects of healthcare information systems”. In this volume they set out to systematically describe and analyse a range of models, frameworks and empirical approaches used to explore this problem, with the intention of providing solutions. The volume is carefully structured around a construct of the interaction between humans and healthcare information/technology systems, from human‐computer interaction and usability issues, through the organisational to the national level. This construct forms the basis for the five sections:

1. 1.

   Usability and human‐computer interaction;

2. 2.

   Supporting healthcare work practices;

3. 3.

   Organisational aspects;

4. 4.

   Strategic approaches to improving the healthcare system; and

5. 5.

   Legal, ethical and professional issues.

Within each of these sections, chapters contributed by invited authors explore current approaches, theories, models and research related to the problem, within the overall construct. Individual chapters are thorough and well‐researched and form the basis of a valuable textbook on the topic. However, the reader is well advised to use the detailed contents pages, which outline contents of chapters, and show how the volume is structured, because, as with many publications from this publisher, the index is skimpy and poorly constructed. This title is recommended for medical and general academic libraries.

Joseph Tan's Healthcare Information Systems and Informatics: Research and Practices sets out to present a number of theoretical models that can be used for investigating the effectiveness of health informatics applications. A lack of standard methods and underlying theory identified by the editor as a significant problem in health informatics is intended to be remedied by these contributions, which outline some recommended approaches to health information systems research. Methodologies included range from the highly quantitative, such as statistical modelling and data mining, to qualititative approaches, employing interviews and case studies. Standard information systems methods that are employed in some contributions include the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Roger's Diffusion of Innovation Theory, and Triandis's Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour. While the volume by no means covers all the theoretical approaches that can (and routinely are) used in this area of research, there are some useful examples here, and the volume could be used in health informatics research courses as a supplementary text. Not all the chapters seem to have been written with this pedagogical intention in mind, however, and, like many other recent volumes in the field, contributions range from the highly original to the mundane. Not all represent innovation or excellence in research. As with the other volumes by the same publisher which are reviewed here, the index is minimal, does not even list standard methodologies and makes no attempt to reconcile alternative names for common theoretical approaches. The book is also marred by constant typographical errors.

The Encyclopedia of Healthcare Information Systems, with over 450 authors, some of whom are well known, but many of whom have yet to distinguish themselves in the field of health informatics, is a mixed bag. The editors claim that the work is a compilation of “articles by international experts pertaining to critical concepts about the use, adoption, design, and diffusion of ICTs in health care”, focused on five themes:

1. 1.

   Use;

2. 2.

   Innovation;

3. 3.

   Evaluation;

4. 4.

   Ethics; and

5. 5.

   Effective management.

Containing around 180 short articles, on an extremely wide range of topics, the three volumes are indeed encyclopaedic in scope – but at that point their claim to be called an encyclopaedia ends. The contents are not organised in any structured way, individual chapters are simply published in alphabetical order according to their original titles, so that “Adoption of ICT … ” precedes “Advances in Bone tissue engineering”, precedes “Analytics: unpacking AIDS in the black community” and so on. The reader must turn to the index in order to approach any desired topic – but here again there is no systematic approach to knowledge. Keywords have been extracted from the published papers (seemingly randomly author‐generated keywords at the end of each chapter have been ignored), terms are repeated, alternative terms appear side by side, and the entire index, around ten pages or 1,000 terms in total, provides extremely limited access to the randomly organised 1,400‐odd pages of text. The five themes do not appear in the index (there are no entries, for example, under ethics or evaluation), and only appear in the contents in passing. Even a basic concept such as EHR (Electronic Health Record) appears in six different variants in the index, referring the reader to six different articles, by different authors, which address six different aspects of EHRs. There is no attempt to cover the topic in a systematic way, explaining core concepts, summarising state of the art technology or recent research. Many other key topics are addressed by various authors in passing (HL7 appears a few times, but these references are all differently indexed, and not linked.) Some topics do not appear to be covered at all (e.g. SNOMed, OpenEHR architecture), and, while some authors have taken their brief seriously and tried to cover their topic in a general and explanatory way (sometimes with explanations and examples confined to their own country), other authors have simply described their own research or technology development. So if it does not serve the purpose of an encyclopaedia does this volume have any value? That is difficult to answer – the topics are so varied that the intended audience is difficult to define. No one would think to look here first for information on a specific topic, and the three volumes are too unwieldy for browsing. The online version presumably offers text searchable access to the contents, but the issue of quality control still remains. Papers are of uneven quality, and it is hard to assess the level of quality control that was exercised by the editors. At a cost of $US995 for the print version, which for a time includes access to the online version for the life of the edition, potential purchasers would do better to acquire basic volumes which more systematically address key topics in the field, and rely on peer‐reviewed research literature for up‐to‐date access to innovations in the field.

As noted above, if the publishers wish to make a mark in the field of health informatics alongside some of the established medical, scientific and technical publishing houses, it is essential to improve the editorial control of their products, and bring a more systematic approach to the field of study.