Public health program emphasizes
informatics
Story by Christine Hurley Deriso
Photo
Illustration by Phil Jones
April 18,
2005
The Medical College of Georgia Department of Health Informatics is rethinking conventional wisdom to improve the health of communities, with the premise that knowledge comes from transforming information into enduring value, not as a byproduct of data collection.
The department has begun a master of public health program in informatics, which will accept its first students this fall. The program will prepare students to improve the health of populations by managing health organizations and health information systems in hospitals, health maintenance organizations, clinics, public health departments and other health related institutions, according to Dr. Carol Campbell, chair of the School of Allied Health Sciences Department of Health Informatics.
MCG President Daniel W. Rahn notes that with a sharp rise in lifestyle-related diseases and a growing shift from acute to chronic care, MCG’s emphasis on public health is particularly timely. “Two factors have converged: an unprecedented opportunity to shape wellness and quality of life at the societal level, and the technological advances to expedite the process,” he said.
The MCG Department of Health Informatics is on the forefront of optimizing those advances, Dr. Campbell said, including supporting the federal initiative to create electronic health records for all U.S. citizens by 2015.
The department also is carefully attuned to rapidly evolving societal changes, she noted.
“Today’s health care environment is characterized by multiple pressures,” Dr. Campbell said. “Patients demand more of their health care providers. Federal and state regulations and funding formulas stress the budgets of health care facilities. Our litigious society adds to the mounting cost of health care delivery. And technology innovations make change a constant event.
“These pressures place new demands on health care administrators. A new kind of leadership is a must-have for health care facilities to survive and thrive.”
Dr. Miguel A. Zuniga, director of the public health program, welcomes the challenge. “The way we manage and disseminate information leads to a turning point in decision-making,” said Dr. Zuniga, whose medical degree, master’s degree in health administration and doctorate in public health/health services research offer a broad perspective on the issue. “Information leads to better decision-making and better outcomes.”
And rather than serving a traditional role of compiling and assessing health-related information as it becomes available, Dr. Zuniga plans a more proactive role of gathering data based on the needs of a community.
“The idea is to introduce informatics into the areas of health administration, epidemiology, environmental health, biostatistics and health promotion,” he said. “That is happening now in practice, but it wasn’t happening when today’s public health officials were trained. We’re making sure our curriculum reflects the evolution of the discipline.”
Technology has made the goal immeasurably easier, he said. “Every time there is a technological advance, health care becomes more efficient with better outcomes. Let’s use those technological changes to incorporate health informatics into the public health system and train professionals to become innovators.”
For instance, a traditional role in health informatics may have been to document the incidence of type II diabetes in a community. The new role is to gather, interpret and assess data that will specifically address the problem and help shape solutions.
MCG has a proud tradition of playing a proactive role in public health, according to MCG Medical Historian in Residence Lois T. Ellison, a 1950 graduate of the MCG School of Medicine. Although the university’s School of Public Health was short-lived, “from 1922-32, 48 students received 55 public health degrees from the Medical College of Georgia,” Dr. Ellison recounts in her 2004 publication, Moments in History.
Further, she writes, “the contributions of MCG faculty in public health are noted as early in 1839 at the time of the yellow fever epidemic” and “public health in the MCG curriculum was first mentioned in February 1893.”
Dr. Zuniga recalls his delight when he learned about MCG’s new program, prompting him to pull up stakes from Texas A&M Health Science Center’s School of Rural Public Health, even though he hadn’t been considering a career change. “I thought, ‘Wow, this was written for me,’” he said. “The department really has the foundation to make a difference in public health professions. This is an exciting opportunity, and I feel privileged to play a role.”
For more information about the new program, contact Dr. Zuniga’s office at 706-721-3436 or www.mcg.edu/sah/DHI/MPH/index.htm.