With the deployment of personal smart health technology, new digital tools are now within reach of people around the globe. From smart watches that monitor heart rate to Bluetooth enabled pulse oximeters, individuals can now get information about their health and do a better job taking care of themselves. As the importance of these consumer tools grow, students must be trained to develop these technologies. A new book aims to do just that.
Consumer Health Informatics: Enabling Digital Health for Everyone, released this month by Chapman & Hall/CRC Press as part of their Health Informatics series, is for anybody interested in designing, promoting, or developing better understanding of consumer-facing information technologies in healthcare. The authors, Professor Catherine Arnott Smith (UW-Madison Information School) and her longtime collaborator Dr. Alla Keselman (National Library of Medicine), expect that undergraduate and graduate students in computer science, data science, and information science, as well as informatics practitioners will find that book valuable.
Topics covered include patient portals, wearables, apps, websites, smart homes and online health communities.
The book is unique for its focus on the consumer managing their own healthcare outside of the clinical setting. It is also the first consumer health informatics textbook on the market for students outside of medical or nursing programs.
Medical informatics pioneer Betsy Humphreys calls the book “An engaging introduction to an exciting multidisciplinary field where positive impact depends less on technology than on understanding and responding to human motivations, specific information needs, and life constraints.”
Read more about Smith & Keselman’s book, Consumer Health Informatics: Enabling Digital Health for Everyone