Informatics

Informatics is the science of collecting, organizing, manipulating, sharing, storing, and retrieving information. Informatics is closely related to information engineering, as it relies on computers and technology. Yet, informatics also has features of social science because people spread the information to other individuals and organizations. Informatics originated in the second half of the twentieth century with the development of technology capable of working with and storing information. Informatics is very often used in the fields of medicine and biomedical research, though it is used in numerous other fields as well. Various fields and disciplines have different goals from using informatics, but they all use it to maximize the way information is used to improve processes and outcomes. People who work in informatics often specialize in a particular field and focus on information related to that field.

Background

The birth of informatics occurred at about the same time computer technology was developing. Humans have been gathering information and making computations for millennia. Ancient astronomers observed the sky and noted the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. Many of the earliest forms of writing were records of business transactions and genealogical lists of rulers. Prior to the twentieth century, humans compiled information and did computations by hand. As technology expanded, humans began to invent new ways to make those tasks simpler.

One of the first instances of technology helping organize information came with the invention of the cash register in the late nineteenth century. Instead of keeping track of sales by hand, merchants could use the registers to do the work for them. Soon, machines such as telephones and telegraphs became popular and were used to send messages quickly over long distances. In the mid-twentieth century, people invented computers, which were machines capable of performing tasks much faster than the human brain. Within a few years, programs and software were developed to instruct the machines how to compute more information faster and more efficiently.

In the modern era, computers can take only fractions of a second to solve equations that might take humans hours to solve. Nearly all large sets of modern information are saved on computers and transmitted digitally. Since almost all information is accessible through computers, people have more opportunities to use technology as a way to store, organize, and use that information. For example, scientists in the twenty-first century have mapped the human genome. That information, which is made up of millions of pieces of data, is stored and available digitally. Scientists can access the data for their own research and send the information to others. They can store the data in multiple places without having to manually make copies of it.

In a similar example, electronic health records have largely replaced paper health records. Doctors in different parts of the world can access information about a specific patient at the same time. They can also discuss health-care options for that patient instantly. Thanks to computer technology, humans can now manipulate, send, store, analyze, and retrieve information using computers. The use of technology to do these tasks is called informatics.

Overview

The term informatics was first developed in the late 1950s. This was a time when information technology was in its infancy, and the early computers that existed could only perform relatively limited calculations. Nevertheless, scientists realized the potential for computers and technology to help people collect, organize, store, and transmit information. Researchers are unsure about the origin of the term informatics, but many believe it came from combining the words “information” and “automatic.”

During the next few decades, scientists began using the term to describe the science of information. Because collected information is nearly always stored on and retrieved from digital sources, the term became tied to computers. Informatics came to mean gathering, manipulating, storing, and retrieving information. Informaticians, or people who deal with informatics, began to work in various fields that dealt with large amounts of information. Information can be described as a collection of different values and bits of raw data, though it can also include data that has been refined or interpreted to make it more useful. Informaticians also try to identify ways to model phenomena to learn from patterns they discover within the data.

Informatics is an interdisciplinary science related to a wide range of fields. At the same time, it is always connected to information technology (IT) because this discipline is at the core of most modern technology and information storage. IT professionals often develop the information systems people use to store and process information. To create systems for information management, informaticians need to become knowledgeable about the elements of IT. By increasing their skills in computer programming and programming languages, informaticians can learn how to develop software and computer systems for organizing information. Furthermore, understanding the technology that manages information can help informaticians successfully use that information.

Though informaticians require knowledge of information systems, they also need to be trained in a specific field of study to which information applies. An informatician acts as a type of liaison between the people who build the information systems and the people who will use the systems. For that reason, informaticians should understand information science as well as their specific field. Some informaticians play a part in helping develop the technological aspects of an information system and test the system to see if it will work for those who use them. Other informaticians may gather and manage data, while others look for ways to disseminate or translate that information.

The fields that are related to informatics are called cognates. One of its most common cognates is life science. When informatics is used with information from the life sciences, the result is called bioinformatics. Bioinformatics uses informatics to manage information concerning biology, genetics, and related sciences. Informatics and the life sciences were first linked in the 1960s, and the field has grown over time. In the twenty-first century, informatics is used in genetic research, biomedicine, and related fields. Bioinformatics benefits from large data sets of information, such as the sequencing of the human genome and the understanding of macromolecular structures. Bioinformatics is a primary way scientific communities ensure they have the most up-to-date and relevant information possible.

One closely related area to bioinformatics is the medical and medical research field. Informatics is prevalent in this field because it produces large amounts of information and it benefits from having that information shared with many different sources. The medical field has many different specialties in which informaticians can work. For example, informaticians involved with nursing can help create software or other systems that manage information about patients, care, and outcomes. Nursing informaticians may liaise between the nurses on a particular staff and the IT department handling the software used to record data. Because they have nursing experience, informaticians in this field understand both the duties of a nurse and the requirements of an IT professional. This can allow them to better understand how to structure software to best handle a nurse’s workflow. Many masters’ degree-level nursing programs also offer degrees in informatics because of its importance. Other specialties in medical informatics include clinical research, consumer health, public health, pharmacy, and telemedicine. Dental informatics and veterinary informatics are also related fields.

Informatics is made up of many other cognate fields. For example, informaticians can specialize in sciences such as chemistry or astronomy; they can also specialize in music, fine arts, linguistics, the media, criminal justice, economics, and many other fields. Students interested in the field can take informatics-related majors in college or they can first earn a degree in a cognate field and become skilled in informatics through additional schooling while on the job. Some colleges offer informatics degrees that are usually related to IT programs but fall outside of an IT degree. Informatics degrees typically include courses on IT and computer technology, but they also include math, statistics, and other topics. People who become informaticians after they have already specialized in a cognate field may go through further education, such as earning a master’s degree in informatics skills.

Bibliography

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