Health Informatics: Digital Health Service Delivery - The Future is Now!

Healthcare systems around the world are going through immense changes as innovative approaches to healthcare delivery are adopted to reduce cost and improve quality of care. Health informatics professionals are increasingly required to support these changes, and innovation, learning from experience and sharing ideas are essential to delivering the promises of e-health. This book presents the proceedings of the 21st Australian National Health Informatics Conference (HIC 2013), held in Adelaide, Australia in July 2013. The theme of HIC 2013 is ‘Digital Health Service Delivery – the Future is Now!’, emphasising the urgency of the need to embrace and advance the field of health informatics. The 28 papers in this volume examine and discuss directions, successes and other factors which need to be considered by all those involved in developing or implementing new health informatics systems. They present a wide diversity of work ranging from deeply theoretical to intensely practical, and represent experiences not only from Australasia, but also from many other parts of the world. Topics covered include: the design of viable and sustainable telehealth services, building an educated health informatics workforce, how to prepare health professionals for e-health as a life long learning process, improving the cancer patient journey, designing a diabetes mobile application with social network support, as well as many others. This book will be of interest to all those involved in the current and future provision of healthcare services.