Medical computer science – Definition and meaning

Medical computer science is the science for the systematic development, presentation, administration and provision of data, information and knowledge in healthcare. It promises to provide the best possible healthcare. Medical computer science supports and models health care processes with IT tools. The development of practice administration systems or new diagnostic-therapeutic procedures should be mentioned here as examples. Medical computer science also plays a major role in medical technology design and is becoming an increasingly popular subject.

The term Informatique médicale was coined by Francois Grémy, a professor at the medical faculty in Paris, for the first time in the late 1960s. This was then first mentioned in various publications in Germany in the 1970s, before the world's first course in medical computer science was started in the winter semester of 1972 as a cooperation between Heilbronn University and the Ruprechts-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. Since then, medical computer science has gained enormous popularity and momentum in line with the increasing demands on the technological capacities of the local health system. In recent years, this discipline has dominated, above all, the emergence of e-health systems.

The study of medical computer science characterizes a large number of topics from medicine and informatics. This is intended to fully open up the large sector of digitization in medicine. In addition to the basics of nuclear medicine, radiology, radiation therapy and computer science, the legal handling of health records also plays a major role. As with all service sectors, customer friendliness and satisfaction are also the focus in medical computer science. Factors such as ergonomics and usability as well as UX in medical technology are of particular importance, especially in the area of ​​e-health. The specially created applications should not only fulfill their purpose purely functionally, but should also be easy to use, in the best case even intuitive.

Medical computer science offers some groundbreaking possibilities in the field of diagnostics. The computer-aided documentation of electronic patient files can sustainably improve the work processes of the treating authorities. By collecting data, processes and mistakes are to be shown to those involved in a comprehensible manner and thus controllable. Medical computer science thus contributes immensely to quality assurance. The development goes even further. With the help of the collected data, knowledge-based systems are set up that actively support doctors and nurses in diagnosing and treating patients. Consequently, medical computer science offers an innovative opportunity to improve imaging diagnostics in medicine. The collected data is also increasingly being used in the field of augmented reality. These are displayed to the attending physician in the field of vision during the operation through special VR glasses. In this way, they can provide crucial support, for example, during complicated interventions.

As already mentioned, e-health represents a new and large area of ​​medical computer science. This is ultimately a collective term for the use of digital technologies in healthcare. This is how it describes all tools and services in which information and communication technologies are used to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of any diseases in a targeted manner. Areas of application for medical informatics include electronic health records and telemedicine services. The latter create the opportunity to decisively counteract the shortage of doctors and specialists in rural areas. Of course, the question arises to what extent the quality of an appointment can also be maintained digitally. However, in combination with a digital medical record, remote monitoring seems to be a suitable means. Medical computer science and e-health received particular attention during the pandemic. Various applications for the smartphone made it possible to collect data, with the help of which infection chains could be broken and the pandemic events curbed.

Not least in such applications, but in the entire field of medical computer science, data protection in particular must be addressed. Although it is undoubtedly an advantage to be able to access all patient data digitally at any time, this form of storage involves some risks. Wherever personal data is used, there is a high vulnerability of the individual. On the one hand, there is a high risk of attacks such as hacking. It is very difficult – if at all possible – to rule out this risk. On the other hand, keeping and sharing personal data has become the business of our century. In this way, the commercialization of individual data can hardly be prevented. As in many areas, the weighing of risks and benefits plays a decisive role in medical computer science. On the one hand, the advantages are difficult to deny and the creation of a better digital infrastructure seems urgently needed (the health authorities sometimes still work by fax), on the other hand, security in the digital space has not really changed for the better and is still extremely vulnerable. Exploring this field of tension and finding solutions is an important task of medical informatics.

Medical computer science holds many new interesting and desirable possibilities for improving the local and global health system. At the same time, making decisions and creating innovations in this field is not always easy, since highly sensitive personal data is used. So it remains to be seen how medical computer science will shape the medical sector in the future.

If you have any further questions about medical computer science, please feel free to contact us at any time. We are looking forward to your message.