INTRODUCTION TO MEDICAL INFORMATICS Anne C. Baker, MLIS Boxer University Library

1
INTRODUCTIONTOMEDICAL INFORMATICSAnne C.
Baker, MLISBoxer University Library
2
Medical Informatics - Definition

• Medical informatics has to do with all aspects of
  understanding and promoting the effective
  organization, analysis, management, and use of
  information in health care. American Medical
  Informatics Association

3
Medical Informatics - Definition

• "...the understanding, skills, and tools that
  enable the sharing and use of information to
  deliver healthcare and promote health" and
  "...the name of an academic discipline developed
  and pursued over the past decades by a world-wide
  scientific community engaged in advancing and
  teaching knowledge about the application of
  information and technologies to healthcare - the
  place where health, information and computer
  sciences, psychology, epidemiology, and
  engineering intersect. British Medical
  Informatics Society

4
Medical Informatics - Definition
5
Research Using the Boxer University Librarys
Electronic Resources

• Step 1. Recognition of available resources on our
  LRC/Library webpage http//www.rosalindfranklin.ed
  u/lrc/
• Step 2. Select terms that direct the search most
  efficiently by using controlled vocabulary i.e.
  MeSH
• Step 3. Combine search terms into a logical
  format (Boolean, keyword, or MeSH)

6
Step 1 - Resources

• PubMed
• EBSCOhost
• STAT!Ref
• Cochrane Library

• National Guideline Clearinghouse
• NLM Clinical Queries
• HSTAT Health Services Technology Assessment Tool

7
Step 2 Controlled Vocabulary

• MeSH Medical Subject Headings
• MeSH is the National Library of Medicine's
  controlled vocabulary thesaurus.
• Consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a
  hierarchical structure that permits searching at
  various levels of specificity.
• Used by NLM for indexing articles from 4,800 of
  the world's leading biomedical journals for the
  MEDLINE/PubMED database.
• Each bibliographic reference is associated with a
  set of MeSH terms that describe the content of
  the item.
• Search queries use MeSH vocabulary to find items
  on a specific topic.

8
Step 3 Building a Search Strategy

• PubMed
• Boolean, keyword, or MeSH
• For keyword searching, use the History feature
  to combine search terms and preview results.
• Use the MeSH Database to select controlled
  vocabulary and build Boolean searches.

9
PubMed
10
PubMed
11
PubMed
12
EBSCOhost
13
EBSCOhost
14
EBSCOhost
15
STAT!Ref
16
STAT!Ref
17
Cochrane Library
18
Cochrane Library
19
National Guideline Clearinghouse
20
National Guideline Clearinghouse
21
NLM Clinical Queries
22
NLM Clinical Queries
23
HSTAT
24
HSTAT