CHIC approach to health informatics

Among the coordinated projects that aim to integrate IM into the health sector so that it better serves clinicians is the newly developed Collaborative Health Informatics Centre (CHIC), a national not-for-profit organisation whose focus is to improve patient care and business processes in the health sector through the application of appropriate information technologies.

CHIC is designed to provide details of the latest trends and issues in health informatics, what solutions exist to address institutional inefficiencies, and the IT decision makers in the health sector.

This information is resourced by CHIC's independent board of health care, academic, government, and industry representatives.

Its core product, the Health IT Information Service (HITS), accepts annual subscriptions in exchange for access to facts, figures, and best practice information on requested areas.

The University of Queensland meanwhile has embarked on the Centre for Online Health (COH) project since the beginning of the year, that involves clinicians, computer experts, educators, economists, business managers, and other groups in developing practical and more beneficial health systems.

Professor Peter Yellowlees, who helped form COH, said that the project has sought this coordinated strategy to further research, educate and deliver online health systems in a way that considers all perspectives and will therefore be more functional.