Give Me Your Definition Of Biomedical Informatics - Quick! Don't Think! Say The First Thing That Comes Into Your Head!

This week, someone at work actually asked me this question, in all seriousness. Without resorting to any long and specific answer, I replied, "Medical information and data".

Our Health Informatics online class this week focused on a variety of e-topics that were very interesting and informative and definitely gave me much food for thought.

We answered the questions below which were organized into four topic clusters:

#1
Is it necessarily wrong to not include a diagnosis in a person's EHR?
Is it necessarily wrong to not include a treatment in a person's EHR?
If the patient asks to have a treatment not in their EHR because of their current insurance fee and their present ability to pay bills, and the physician had already decided to not charge the patient for the treatment, is it okay to not document the treatment?
If an insurance company changes their grading criteria to cover an individual which would lead to a person being dropped by their carrier because of a documented diagnosis, is there any recourse for the individual?

#2
What is the process for regulating a drug in the US?
What US regulated drug is purchased online the most purchased?
Are their moneyback guarantees from online pharmacies?
Is there phone support for online pharmacies?
Is the phone support about the website or about the drug?
What is the best marketing approach for online pharmacies?

#3
What are peer-to-peer computer applications in health care?
What are some existing peer-to-peer computer applications used presently for health care?
Have there been any peer-to-peer tools repurposed to assist in health care?
What are some possible uses of peer-to-peer computing in healthcare that are not being employed currently?

#4
What are e-communities in health care?
How do e-communities in healthcare work? (e.g.this would be an e-community that discusses specific health topics)
Are health e-communities influencing the way health care is practiced?
Has there been any "harm" blamed on the information gained from or participation in a health e-community?

In attempting to research and answer these questions, we delved into governmental agencies, law, ethics, opinion, fact, fiction, online investigation, advice, projection and conjecture. Pretty impressive, if I may say so myself . . . and I most certainly do!

:0)