Health Informatics (REDCap)

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In Australia, Health Informatics has been defined as "the body of knowledge that concerns the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of information in, about and for human health, and the design and management of related information systems to advance the understanding and practice of healthcare". the optimal use of information, often aided by the use of technology, to improve individual health, health care, public health, and biomedical research". In the context of clinical research, consulting with a health informatics specialist will facilitate and provide support in methods related to:

Design stage -

  • E-health and digital health: Investigating the interfaces and interactions between technologies in health and the people who use them.
  • Data:  organization, data provenance and data governance;

Execution stage -

E-health -

  • Mobile and social web technologies
  • Precision medicine: Research areas include nanotechnology informatics, knowledge management systems to assess the clinical relevance of biomarkers, data integration in clinical bioinformatics
  • Participatory medicine: the development of social networks, mobile apps and self-monitoring devices. In addition to projects related to evidence-based health interventions with social networks, development of virtual communities for patients and public participation in health through web technologies
  • Advanced professional practice: Informatics for e-health solutions includes e-learning and analysis of health sector changes arising from new technologies particularly the integration of emerging high capacity broadband technologies in healthcare, and their influence on health literacy.

Data -

  • Systematic clinical data acquisition and data collection, including new molecular analytical technologies (eg. clinical genomics) and new sensors and devices for individual health data (eg. mobile health, quantified self),
  • Data linkage, integration and privacy protection methods (eg. identity matching and de-identification) In particular we encourage the use of GRHANITE™ (privacy-protection data extraction and linkage tool),
  • The provision of health informatics tools, such as REDCap™ (web-based research data collection),
  • Standardized representation of clinical data (eg. clinical vocabularies and terminologies)'
  • Expert consultation in new methods to conduct and evaluate health interventions based on the use of eHealth (telehealth, mobile health systems and social media);

Completion and translation stage - Expert consultation in the representation, analysis and visualization of biomedical and clinical knowledge (ie. automatic text processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence methods).

Support - To connect with a Health Informatician for support (excluding REDCap) please contact mdap-info@unimelb.edu.au