The last few decades have seen the digital transformation of healthcare, with health informaticians taking the lead in innovations which have enabled the sector to evolve from rudimentary computer based records to large-scale systems allowing for intra-organisational, national and even international communication and information exchange. Establishing and maintaining strong partnerships between the healthcare community, government, universities and industry is integral to supporting these advances. This book presents 24 selected papers from the 25th Australian National Health Informatics Conference (HIC 2017), held in Brisbane, Australia, in August 2017. The theme of HIC 2017 is Integrating and Connecting Care, and the conference provides the ideal professional and social environment for clinicians, researchers, health IT professionals, industry and consumers to integrate, educate and share their knowledge and debate current and future health systems. The papers in the book reflect the theme of the conference, highlighting the cutting-edge research evidence, technology updates and innovations crucial to the digital transformation of the healthcare sector. Health informatics and e-health play a central role in connecting information systems, being smart with data, and enhancing both practitioner and consumer experience in healthcare interactions, and the book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners alike.

The impact of information technology on the management of healthcare has been enormous in recent years, and it continues to grow in scope and complexity. This book presents papers from the 2014 International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare (ICIMTH), held in Athens, Greece, in July 2014. The book includes 79 full papers and 12 poster presentations as well as keynotes, two workshops and three tutorials. Papers are divided into sections including: clinical informatics; decision support and intelligent systems; e-learning and education; health informatics, information management and technology assessment; healthcare IT; mobile technology in healthcare; public health informatics and issues; social and legal issues; and telemedicine. The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the use of biomedical and health informatics.

Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health was released in September 2019, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. Improving social conditions remains critical to improving health outcomes, and integrating social care into health care delivery is more relevant than ever in the context of the pandemic and increased strains placed on the U.S. health care system. The report and its related products ultimately aim to help improve health and health equity, during COVID-19 and beyond. The consistent and compelling evidence on how social determinants shape health has led to a growing recognition throughout the health care sector that improving health and health equity is likely to depend â€" at least in part â€" on mitigating adverse social determinants. This recognition has been bolstered by a shift in the health care sector towards value-based payment, which incentivizes improved health outcomes for persons and populations rather than service delivery alone. The combined result of these changes has been a growing emphasis on health care systems addressing patients' social risk factors and social needs with the aim of improving health outcomes. This may involve health care systems linking individual patients with government and community social services, but important questions need to be answered about when and how health care systems should integrate social care into their practices and what kinds of infrastructure are required to facilitate such activities. Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health examines the potential for integrating services addressing social needs and the social determinants of health into the delivery of health care to achieve better health outcomes. This report assesses approaches to social care integration currently being taken by health care providers and systems, and new or emerging approaches and opportunities; current roles in such integration by different disciplines and organizations, and new or emerging roles and types of providers; and current and emerging efforts to design health care systems to improve the nation's health and reduce health inequities.

Connecting Care for Patients: Interdisciplinary Care Transitions and Collaboration addresses practical strategies for creating connected, seamless, and transparent health care for patients in settings outside of the hospital. It presents antidotes to healthcare fragmentation caused by inefficient care, patient safety problems, patient dissatisfaction, and higher costs. The text focuses on clinical case management, interdisciplinary referrals and conferencing, cross functional team meetings, tracking patients in value-based purchasing programs, inpatient liaison visits, structured collaboration with physician groups, and referral sources and development of clinical community networking groups. Further, it explores tools for patient self-management support, effective integration of technology, family caregiver engagement, and techniques for addressing health disparities and other high-risk care gaps.

Connecting Care for Patients: Interdisciplinary Care Transitions and Collaboration addresses practical strategies for creating connected, seamless, and transparent health care for patients in settings outside of the hospital. It presents antidotes to healthcare fragmentation caused by inefficient care, patient safety problems, patient dissatisfaction, and higher costs. The text focuses on clinical case management, interdisciplinary referrals and conferencing, cross functional team meetings, tracking patients in value-based purchasing programs, inpatient liaison visits, structured collaboration with physician groups, and referral sources and development of clinical community networking groups. Further, it explores tools for patient self-management support, effective integration of technology, family caregiver engagement, and techniques for addressing health disparities and other high-risk care gaps.

This book provides pertinent and practical information about how to create, work, and thrive in an Integrated Care (IC) setting. Unlike other books on the subject, it focuses on the "nuts and bolts" of establishing an IC practice; it also covers material that is often missing from or insufficiently covered in the existing literature. Specific topics discussed include the basics of IC, such as different models and levels of IC and examples of IC initiatives; how to build an IC program, with guidelines for entering and working effectively in a practice, as well as managing the associated economic aspects; ethical issues involved in IC, given the discrepancies between medical and mental health ethical standards; assessment and intervention in IC; cross-cultural and diversity issues in IC; and leadership, consultation, and supervision.

As citizens, we must all take responsibility for our own health to some extent, and recent developments in medical informatics have provided some valuable new ways to help us do that. This book presents the proceedings of the 2020 Special Topic Conference of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI STC 2020), held for the first time as a virtual conference on 26 & 27 November 2020, due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Entitled Integrated citizen centered digital health and social care – Citizens as data producers and service co-creators, this conference focused on the citizen-centered aspects of health informatics. This topic provided the opportunity for contributors to present innovative solutions to allow citizens to take greater responsibility for their health with the help of information and communication technology, and the 52 presented papers published here cover a wide range of areas under the broad, invited subject headings of: tools and technologies to support citizen-centered digital services; capacity building to enhance the development and use of digital services; confidentiality, data integrity and data protection to guarantee trustworthy services; citizen safety in digital services; effectiveness and impact of citizen-digital and integrated health and social services; evaluation approaches and methods for digital services; usability, usefulness and user acceptance of digital services; and guidelines for the successful implementation of digital services for citizens. Offering a current overview of research and applications, the book will be of interest to all those health professionals working to increase citizen use of digital healthcare.