Definitions and Quotes

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

— Maya Angelou

What is eHealth: The World Health Organization (WHO) definition

e-Health is the combined use of electronic communication and information technology in the health sector.

(Source: World Health Organization [WHO])

What is an "Expert": Heisenberg's definition

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject, and how to avoid them.

(Source: Werner Heisenberg, in Physics and Beyond)

What is a "System": Bellinger's definition

System: a definition

A system is an entity which maintains its existence through the mutual interaction of its parts.

A system exists and operates in time and space.

The concept of Emergence: a definition

From the mutual interaction of the parts of a system there arises characteristics which can not be found as characteristic of any of the individual parts.

(Source: Gene Bellinger, in Mental Model Musings)

What is Clinical Informatics: Columbia University definition

Definition

Clinical Informatics is the scientific study of the effective use of information in patient care, clinical research and medical education.

Goals

The ultimate goals of clinical informatics are to streamline the processes of patient care, to provide clinicians with accurate data in a timely manner, improve the quality of care, and to reduce costs.

Users

Users of clinical information systems include physicians, nurses, dentists, technicians, therapists and social workers, as well as patients and consumers.

(Source: Columbia University)

General principle of robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

— Jon Postel

What is eHealth: A systematic review of published definitions

The Journal of Medical Internet Research has an interesting article about the currently available (published) definitions for "eHealth" (e-Health).

That article, by Hans Oh et al., is named: What Is eHealth - A Systematic Review of Published Definitions

From the article abstract:
Context: The term eHealth is widely used by many individuals, academic institutions, professional bodies, and funding organizations. It has become an accepted neologism despite the lack of an agreed-upon clear or precise definition. We believe that communication among the many individuals and organizations that use the term could be improved by comprehensive data about the range of meanings encompassed by the term."
Objective: To report the results of a systematic review of published, suggested, or proposed definitions of eHealth."
Conclusions: The widespread use of the term eHealth suggests that it is an important concept, and that there is a tacit understanding of its meaning. This compendium of proposed definitions may improve communication among the many individuals and organizations that use the term.

The full article may be found at: http://www.jmir.org/2005/1/e1/

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

— Abraham Maslow

Clinical Information Technology projects are highly complex social endeavors, in unforgiving environments, that happen to involve computers, they are not Information Technology projects that happen to involve health workers.

— Scot Silverstein

Medical knowledge is a social process and the conversations that occur around artifactual data are always more important than the data themselves.

— John Lester

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