Discussion of the Language of Health Informatics

Introduction

Health informatics is a multidisciplinary field that makes use of health information technology to improve healthcare through a combination of high quality and high efficient opportunities. Health informatics is referred to as the interdisciplinary study deal with development, design, application, and adoption of the IT-based developments in the healthcare planning, management, and service delivery. Health informatics applies to several areas in the health facilities that include, pharmacy, clinical medicine, public health, nursing and physical therapy. This are the areas created to enhance the general effectiveness of the health care delivery to the patients through ensuring that the data or information generated is of good quality (Hovenga, 2010). The tools involved in health informatics include clinical guidelines, computers, communication systems, and the formal medical terminologies and information. Languages such as python, java, c, and SQL are mostly used in health informatics to record data. This study is aimed at discussing the various languages used in health informatics.

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Python

Python language is an interpolated high-level computer programming language that is essential in programming mainly in the healthcare sector. Python is considered to be a better programming language due to various reasons that include, first. It helps improves on library search. For example, the healthcare personnel can easily access the information concerning the patients since it is stored in an organized manner (Dobesova, 2011). Secondly helps in avoiding string manipulation. The data recorded cannot be easily altered or manipulated thus ensuring the provision of accurate information to be used by the healthcare personnel. Thirdly, python also has a better memory consumption than the other language this helps to ensure that the stored data cannot be lost and it can hold a massive amount of health information. The language is also considered useful in health informatics since it can cover various aspects of mathematics for example algebra, calculus, and numerical mathematics. This is essential in enabling the recording of statistical health information. Such as the numerical value of the number of patients suffering from a specific disease in a health facility.

Language C

This is a general-purpose programming language that ensures the quality and clarity of a computer program through the use of constructs of selection. For example, then, else and if. This language helps to ensure the security of the program to prevent any cases of unintended operations thus ensuring the safety of the stored health information (Hersh, 2009). Language c is highly considered for use in the health informatics due to various reasons that include: First, speed, the healthcare information stored in the system using the c language can be easily accessed because the speed of the program is of good quality thus less time is spent searching for information. Secondly, the language is universally available since most of the programs widely use it, therefore, it is considered to be a valid language in health informatics programming. Thirdly, the language is considered to be stable thus ensuring the security of the healthcare information is well maintained and can only be accessed by the authorized personnel. Fourth, the language facilitates the application or use of data structures and algorithms. This helps in storage of statistical information concerning the patients, for example, the number of cases of a particular disease.

Language SQL

The language SQL is used in programming mainly to manage the information that is kept in the logical database management systems. The language is used in controlling the structured data in a situation whereby there is the relation between different variables or entities of data. For example in health informatics system, language SQL may be used in the storage of structured data on a specific disease that occurs due to different causes (Herland, 2014). The language SQL has various advantages such as. First, it enables the access of the health information within a single command, and one does not have to undergo a series of steps or process to get the information. Therefore, it is considered efficient. Secondly, the language does not need one to specify on how to get a particular health record, for example with or without an index. This helps to ensure quick access to the stored health information. This language has a scope that makes it practical and useful in the healthcare informatics system this include. Data manipulation which involves inserting data, updating and deleting irrelevant health information. Data definition this involves data creation and modification and data access control.

Language Java

Java language is usually class-based, concurrent and object-oriented and mainly designed to have few implementation dependencies. The language is used in the health informatics due to various reasons that include, first, the execution speed is usually high thus making the retrieval of health data easy and quick. This ensures that the informatics computing system is of high performance. Secondly, the language also ensures that the health informatics system is secure such that the stored information can only be accessed by the authorized personnel only and the health information cannot be easily altered. Thirdly, the programming language also enables the system to store huge amount of data.

References

Dobesova, Z. (2011, September). Programming language python for data processing. In Electrical and Control Engineering (ICECE), 2011 International Conference on (pp. 4866-4869). IEEE.

Hovenga, E. J. (Ed.). (2010). Health informatics: an overview(Vol. 151). Ios Press.

Hersh, W. (2009). A stimulus to define informatics and health information technology. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 9(1), 24.

Herland, M., Khoshgoftaar, T. M., & Wald, R. (2014). A review of data mining using big data in health informatics. Journal of Big Data, 1(1), 2.