Louise Schaper, PhD, CEO, Health Informatics Society of Australia: "What's Missing From the Health IT Investment? - Health Informatics"

Louise Schaper, PhD, CEO of the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA, http://www.hisa.org.au/), graciously extended an invitation in 2011 that I could not attend, and again in 2012 (that I accepted) to give a keynote presentation at HISA's annual convention, Healthcare Informatics Conference (HIC).  A writeup of my HIC2012 presentation in Sydney is at http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2012/08/my-presentation-to-health-informatics.html.

I unfortunately could not make it Down Under for HIC2013 in Adelaide.  However, HISA has posted videos of a number of presenters.

One of the presenters is Dr. Schaper.  Her presentation "Health Informatics: A megatrend driving investment, careers & delivering the future of healthcare" is at http://www.hisa.org.au/page/hic2014videos (bottom video).  It is well worth watching.

Louise Schaper PhD, CEO, Health Informatics Society of Australia

After reviewing the potential benefits of heathcare IT, Dr. Schaper asks what I consider the most critical question of all.

At 08:20 she asks:  "What's missing from this [multi-billion dollar] investment?"

The answer is "Health Informatics."

Dr. Schaper then indicates the real-world implications of the field of commercial health IT largely missing its critical founding scientific discipline:

At 13:00 she amplifies the point further:  We are not learning our lessons!  The themes of that slide are familiar to readers of this blog, and to current health IT users:

Dr, Schaper then goes on to cover some real-world issues related to impediments to meaningful health informatician engagement in health IT design, implementation and other aspects of leadership.

The presentation is worth watching in its entirety.  The issues in health IT of meaningful involvement and leadership by those with expertise in healthcare informatics (as compared to, for example, those in manufacturing, mercantile, and management computing whose experience is often ill-suited for high-level roles in healthcare projects) are truly international.

Finally, for those in the U.S. not used to Australian accents, Dr. Schaper's is quite enjoyable to listen to.

-- SS