This module will provide you with a foundation for understanding health informatics in the wider health landscape and how it impacts on the delivery of healthcare. You will gain an understanding of the concepts and skills required to deliver policy and strategy for high quality patient care, and an insight into organisational aspects affecting the use and application of health informatics. You will study techniques for analysing and modelling systems and representing information using dataflow diagrams and entity relationship diagrams. Approaches to evaluating informatics initiatives will be discussed, in addition to the importance of information governance and the key policies and requirements when working in the health sector.

At the end of this module you will:

Be aware of relevant clinical/health informatics literature and know how best to use it to support.
	Be able to discuss and evaluate key aspects of how healthcare systems are organised, funded and regulated and how these relate to informatics.
	Understand the flow of data/information and knowledge and its use across the health and social care system, and be able to represent domain knowledge in a computable form.
	Be able to discuss systems and technologies in relation to current and future thinking around health systems.
	Understand information governance, cyber-security and issues of privacy and confidentiality and be able to critically appraise local strategies in a wider context of policies and legislation and the ethical, legal and governance requirements across a variety of scenarios.
	Understand how data is collected and created to support clinical, research, direct care and commissioning decisions.
The module is delivered through web-based distance learning in the UCL Virtual Learning Environment plus a 3-day face-to-face teaching session.

Coiera E. (2010). Guide to Health Informatics. Arnold

Taylor P. (2006). From Patient Data to Medical Knowledge. BMJ Books

Wachter R. (2016). Digital Doctor. Macgraw Hill