Medical informatics is the information engineering that deals with the use and management of healthcare information. It ensures the optimization of the acquisition, retrieval, storage and use of such information, in order to foster greater cooperation and collaboration among the different healthcare providers of a patient. It serves a critical role in healthcare reform. It is applied to the fields of dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy, clinical medicine, etc. An important application of this is the concept of integrated data repository, which incorporates different sources of clinical data to render support for solving problems of identity management, comparability of data, protection of confidentiality, etc. This book elucidates new techniques and applications of medical informatics in a multidisciplinary manner. It explores all the important aspects of this discipline in the present day scenario. It will prove to be immensely beneficial to students and researchers in this field.
