To maintain their own health and the health of their families and communities, consumers rely heavily on the health information that is available to them. This information is at the core of the partnerships that patients and their families forge with today's complex modern health systems. This information may be provided in a variety of forms â€" ranging from a discussion between a patient and a health care provider to a health promotion advertisement, a consent form, or one of many other forms of health communication common in our society. Yet millions of Americans cannot understand or act upon this information. To address this problem, the field of health literacy brings together research and practice from diverse fields including education, health services, and social and cultural sciences, and the many organizations whose actions can improve or impede health literacy. Health Literacy: Prescription to End Confusion examines the body of knowledge that applies to the field of health literacy, and recommends actions to promote a health literate society. By examining the extent of limited health literacy and the ways to improve it, we can improve the health of individuals and populations.

Healthcare transformation requires us to continually look at new and better ways to manage insights – both within and outside the organization. Increasingly, the ability to glean and operationalize new insights efficiently as a byproduct of an organization’s day-to-day operations is becoming vital for hospitals and health systems to survive and prosper. One of the long-standing challenges in healthcare informatics has been the ability to deal with the sheer variety and volume of disparate healthcare data and the increasing need to derive veracity and value out of it. This book addresses several topics important to the understanding and use of data in healthcare. First, it provides a formal explanation based on epistemology (theory of knowledge) of what data actually is, what we can know about it, and how we can reason with it. The culture of data is also covered and where it fits into healthcare. Then, data quality is addressed, with a historical appreciation, as well as new concepts and insights derived from the author’s 35 years of experience in technology. The author provides a description of what healthcare data analysis is and how it is changing in the era of abundant data. Just as important is the topic of infrastructure and how it provides capability for data use. The book also describes how healthcare information infrastructure needs to change in order to meet current and future needs. The topics of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in healthcare are also addressed. The author concludes with thoughts on the evolution of the role and use of data and information going into the future.

The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.

The environment is increasingly recognized as having a powerful effect on human and ecological health, as well as on specific types of human morbidity, mortality, and disability. While the public relies heavily on federal and state regulatory agencies for protection from exposures to hazardous substances, it often looks to health professionals for information about routes of exposure and the nature and extent of associated adverse health consequences. However, most health professionals acquire only a minimal knowledge of toxicology during their education and training. In 1967 the National Library of Medicine (NLM) created an information resource, known today as the Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP). In 1995 the NLM asked the Institute of Medicine to examine the accessiblity and utility of the TEHIP databases for the work of health professionals. This resulting volume contains chapters on TEHIP and other toxicology and environmental health databases, on understanding the toxicology and environmental health information needs of health professionals, on increasing awareness of information resources through training and outreach, on accessing and navigating the TEHIP databases, and on program issues and future directions.

In the realm of health care, privacy protections are needed to preserve patients' dignity and prevent possible harms. Ten years ago, to address these concerns as well as set guidelines for ethical health research, Congress called for a set of federal standards now known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule. In its 2009 report, Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Health Research and the Privacy of Health Information concludes that the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not protect privacy as well as it should, and that it impedes important health research.

As our nation enters a new era of medical science that offers the real prospect of personalized health care, we will be confronted by an increasingly complex array of health care options and decisions. The Learning Healthcare System considers how health care is structured to develop and to apply evidence-from health profession training and infrastructure development to advances in research methodology, patient engagement, payment schemes, and measurement-and highlights opportunities for the creation of a sustainable learning health care system that gets the right care to people when they need it and then captures the results for improvement. This book will be of primary interest to hospital and insurance industry administrators, health care providers, those who train and educate health workers, researchers, and policymakers. The Learning Healthcare System is the first in a series that will focus on issues important to improving the development and application of evidence in health care decision making. The Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine serves as a neutral venue for cooperative work among key stakeholders on several dimensions: to help transform the availability and use of the best evidence for the collaborative health care choices of each patient and provider; to drive the process of discovery as a natural outgrowth of patient care; and, ultimately, to ensure innovation, quality, safety, and value in health care.

Drawing on the work of the Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, the 2007 IOM Annual Meeting assessed some of the rapidly occurring changes in health care related to new diagnostic and treatment tools, emerging genetic insights, the developments in information technology, and healthcare costs, and discussed the need for a stronger focus on evidence to ensure that the promise of scientific discovery and technological innovation is efficiently captured to provide the right care for the right patient at the right time. As new discoveries continue to expand the universe of medical interventions, treatments, and methods of care, the need for a more systematic approach to evidence development and application becomes increasingly critical. Without better information about the effectiveness of different treatment options, the resulting uncertainty can lead to the delivery of services that may be unnecessary, unproven, or even harmful. Improving the evidence-base for medicine holds great potential to increase the quality and efficiency of medical care. The Annual Meeting, held on October 8, 2007, brought together many of the nation's leading authorities on various aspects of the issues - both challenges and opportunities - to present their perspectives and engage in discussion with the IOM membership.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Information is a key resource to primary health care and is increasingly required in individual practices. This book will demystify the subject, which is often presented in complex terms. It sets out in a simple and interesting way what information those working in primary care will need, the systems required to deliver them and how to set them up. Information and IT for Primary Care uses exercises, stories, key points, case studies, model answers and think boxes. Worldwide web links refers the reader to resources and shows how to get the most out of your computer. The book is user-friendly, jargon free and based on primary research evidence. It is essential reading for everyone working in primary care organisations including GPs, practice managers and nurses, and staff working in community trusts and the NHS.

An Introduction to Healthcare Informatics: Building Data-Driven Tools bridges the gap between the current healthcare IT landscape and cutting edge technologies in data science, cloud infrastructure, application development and even artificial intelligence. Information technology encompasses several rapidly evolving areas, however healthcare as a field suffers from a relatively archaic technology landscape and a lack of curriculum to effectively train its millions of practitioners in the skills they need to utilize data and related tools. The book discusses topics such as data access, data analysis, big data current landscape and application architecture. Additionally, it encompasses a discussion on the future developments in the field. This book provides physicians, nurses and health scientists with the concepts and skills necessary to work with analysts and IT professionals and even perform analysis and application architecture themselves. - Presents case-based learning relevant to healthcare, bringing each concept accompanied by an example which becomes critical when explaining the function of SQL, databases, basic models etc. - Provides a roadmap for implementing modern technologies and design patters in a healthcare setting, helping the reader to understand both the archaic enterprise systems that often exist in hospitals as well as emerging tools and how they can be used together - Explains healthcare-specific stakeholders and the management of analytical projects within healthcare, allowing healthcare practitioners to successfully navigate the political and bureaucratic challenges to implementation - Brings diagrams for each example and technology describing how they operate individually as well as how they fit into a larger reference architecture built upon throughout the book