Health informatics is the study and implementation of computer structures and algorithms to improve communication, understanding, and management of medical information. It can be viewed as a branch of engineering and applied science.
Health Level Seven, abbreviated to HL7, is a range of global standards for the transfer of clinical and administrative health data between applications with the aim to improve patient outcomes and health system performance. The HL7 standards focus on the application layer, which is "layer 7" in the Open Systems Interconnection model. The standards are produced by Health Level Seven International, an international standards organization, and are adopted by other standards issuing bodies such as American National Standards Institute and International Organization for Standardization. There are a range of primary standards that are commonly used across the industry, as well as secondary standards which are less frequently adopted.
Population health has been defined as "the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group". It is an approach to health that aims to improve the health of an entire human population. It has been described as consisting of three components. These are "health outcomes, patterns of health determinants, and policies and interventions".
Health education is a profession of educating people about health. Areas within this profession encompass environmental health, physical health, social health, emotional health, intellectual health, and spiritual health, as well as sexual and reproductive health education. It can also be defined as any combination of learning activities that aim to assist individuals and communities improve their health by expanding knowledge or altering attitudes.
Primary health care (PHC) is a whole-of-society approach to effectively organise and strengthen national health systems to bring services for health and wellbeing closer to communities.
The right to health is the economic, social, and cultural right to a universal minimum standard of health to which all individuals are entitled. The concept of a right to health has been enumerated in international agreements which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is debate on the interpretation and application of the right to health due to considerations such as how health is defined, what minimum entitlements are encompassed in a right to health, and which institutions are responsible for ensuring a right to health.
Health promotion is, as stated in the 1986 World Health Organization (WHO) Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, the "process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health."
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion is the name of an international agreement signed at the First International Conference on Health Promotion, organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and held in Ottawa, Canada, in November 1986. It launched a series of actions among international organizations, national governments and local communities to achieve the goal of "Health For All" by the year 2000 and beyond through better health promotion.
A patient safety organization (PSO) is a group, institution, or association that improves medical care by reducing medical errors. Common functions of patient safety organizations are data collection, analysis, reporting, education, funding, and advocacy. A PSO differs from a Federally designed Patient Safety Organization (PSO), which provides health care providers in the U.S. privilege and confidentiality protections for efforts to improve patient safety and the quality of patient care delivery
Health literacy is the ability to obtain, read, understand, and use healthcare information in order to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions for treatment. There are multiple definitions of health literacy, in part because health literacy involves both the context in which health literacy demands are made and the skills that people bring to that situation.
The European Institute for Health Records or EuroRec Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 as part of the ProRec initiative. On 13 May 2003, the institute was established as a non-profit organization under French law. Current President of EuroRec is Prof. Dipak Kalra. The institute is involved in the promotion of high quality Electronic Health Record systems in the European Union. One of the main missions of the institute is to support, as the European authorised certification body, EHRs certification development, testing and assessment by defining functional and other criteria.
The Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care was established by the World Health Organization in December 2005. Its general purpose is to reduce "death and disability from road traffic accidents, trauma, burns, falls, pregnancy related complications, domestic violence, disasters and other emergency surgical conditions" by improving collaborations between relevant organizations, institutions, and agencies. Specific objectives include improving basic medical supplies at district hospitals, as well as better training for staff to bolster medical standards and care. Since its inception, GIEESC has grown to include over 2300 members from 140 countries which collaborates to share knowledge, advise policy formation and develop educational resources to reduce the burden of death and disability from conditions that could be treated through surgery.
The St. Vincent Declaration is a set of goals for the health care of people with diabetes mellitus published as the product of an international conference held in St. Vincent, Italy, on 10–12 October 1989.
The Alliance for Healthy Cities (AFHC) is a cooperative international alliance aimed at protecting and enhancing the health and health care of city dwellers. It is composed of groups of cities, urban districts and other organizations from countries around the world in exchanging information to achieve the goal through a health promotion approach called Healthy Cities. The chair city for the alliance is Ichikawa, Japan.
Health For All is a goal of the World Health Organization (WHO), that has been popularized since the 1970s, which envisions securing the health and well being of people around the world. It is the basis for the World Health Organization's primary health care strategy to promote health, human dignity, and enhance quality of life.
The High 5s Project is an international patient safety collaboration launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2006. The project addresses concerns about patient safety around the world.
Public health nursing, also known as community health nursing is a nursing specialty focused on public health. The term was coined by Lillian Wald of the Henry Street Settlement, or, Public health nurses (PHNs) or community health nurses "integrate community involvement and knowledge about the entire population with personal, clinical understandings of the health and illness experiences of individuals and families within the population." Public health nursing in the United States traces back to a nurse named Lillian Wald who, in 1893, established the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and coined the expression "public health nurse". A Public or Community Health Nurse is expected to comply with the duties and limitations of the American Nurse Association (ANA) publication Public Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice.
The Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard is a set of rules and specifications for exchanging electronic health care data. It is designed to be flexible and adaptable, so that it can be used in a wide range of settings and with different health care information systems. The goal of FHIR is to enable the seamless and secure exchange of health care information, so that patients can receive the best possible care. The standard describes data formats and elements and an application programming interface (API) for exchanging electronic health records (EHR). The standard was created by the Health Level Seven International (HL7) health-care standards organization.
Health in All Policies (HiAP) was a term first used in Europe during the Finnish presidency of the European Union (EU), in 2006, with the aim of collaborating across sectors to achieve common goals. It is a strategy to include health considerations in policy making across different sectors that influence health, such as transportation, agriculture, land use, housing, public safety, and education. It reaffirms public health's essential role in addressing policy and structural factors affecting health, as articulated by the Ten Essential Public Health Services, and it has been promoted as an opportunity for the public health sector to engage a broader array of partners.
The International Hospital Federation (IHF) is an independent, not-for-profit, non-governmental organization based in Bernex, Switzerland. The IHF is a global association for healthcare management that assists healthcare organizations and facilities in improving their performance by implementing initiatives that enhance their responsiveness, efficiency, accessibility, and quality in meeting the healthcare requirements of people all over the world. The IHF also provides a platform for the global healthcare community to share knowledge, ideas, and experiences, as well as identify international partnerships and collaboration opportunities. Furthermore, the Federation encourages the creation of new national hospital organizations in order to include as many countries as possible in their activities, particularly emerging and developing nations, and to grow their network.
