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Is Bioinformatics A Multi Disciplinary Field?

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Bioinformatics is a multi-disciplinary field which involves health information technology to improve the efficacy of health care by incorporating better quality, efficient and new technologies. Health informatics is an amalgamation of various disciplines like information science, computer science, social science, management science, behavioral science and others. There are various sub categories in health informatics like the “clinical informatics, pathological informatics, pharmacy informatics, public health informatics, community health informatics, home health informatics, nursing informatics, medical informatics, consumer health informatics, and clinical bio informatics” [1]. In the last 40 years, bioinformatics field has grown beyond …show more content…

These paper based system were inefficient for managing large databases thereby affecting the health care of the patients. These conventional methods were not only unorganized but also sometimes illegible [4, 13], making it harder for the physicians to locate the information of the patients [5, 13]. Most of the time, patients had to retake the tests causing delay in medical examination and increase in cost. In the recent past, with the advent of bioinformatics, storage of medical records is becoming computerized and thereby improving healthcare.
The bioinformatics has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for physicians in the field of decision making. It has been observed, majority of the delay in medical decision is due to lack of information. Every year thousands of researches are conducted all around the world and it is impossible for physicians to keep a track about the information obtained from the results of clinical trials and other studies. The information obtained from these clinical results can be used as reference by the physicians in their medical decisions. The lack of information causes delay and thereby affecting patient healthcare. Bioinformatics help in keeping updated records of the results obtained from the researches. For example, MEDLINE is a database which contains 460,000 references of the information obtained from the conducted clinical trials and other studies. It is updated every year [6, 13].

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