Health Informatics – Sources Of Health Information Critique

Health Informatics – Sources of Health Information Critique Name Institutional Affiliation Sources of Health Information Critique Information is any stimuli and facts that are provided or studied by someone and provide the answer to a certain kind of question or uncertainty. Information can be looked at in the perspective of data that is processed, analyzed and presented about something or someone. To understand something unknown, one has to source and study the information pertaining to what they want to understand. It is thus through information that all the knowledge is acquired. The information can take many different forms. The mode in which the information is collected, its purpose and how it is stored for future reference differs giving rise to different types of information. Health information is a type of information that helps the medical staff to understand, analyze and make conclusions about the health of their patients to facilitate the treatment process (Bonevski, Randell, Paul, Chapman, Twyman, Bryant, & Hughes, 2014). Health information also refers to the medical advice and other medical related information sources that are concerned with the health of the general public. Health, being a sensitive sector in the society, the information that is available in relation to health is thus vital for the well-being of the public. Health informatics has greatly evolved due to the ever-advancing innovations in the information sector, making information easily and readily available to almost anyone, anywhere in the world (Sherwood, & Zomorodi, 2014). The advent of the internet is, for instance, one of the greatest milestones the health information sector has undergone making it accessible to everyone who has access to the internet in any corner of the world (Burwell, 2015). However, the availability of information has posed a major challenge to the credibility and integrity of the information that is available to the general public. Health information has thus been distorted and varied until the correct and credible information becomes rare to find hence unreliable. Health informatics credibility has however been maintained in some selected credible and reliable sources which contain the medically certified information. Health organizations, both governmental and non-governmental have dedicated a lot of time and resources to help in keeping and maintaining the integrity of the health information. WHO which is the United Nations organizations that is tasked to promote, provide, monitor, research, and maintain good health conditions throughout the world and provision of credible and reliable health information is at the heart of this organization. The nurse is a very important person in the process of improving the health literacy of patients. Having a direct relationship with the patients and for a long time, a nurse is a suitable channel for any medical institution to pass down the certified health and medical information to the patients which in turn increases the literacy of the patients and the society at large. The nurse’s role in improving the health literacy of patients is passing the information that they have acquired through their training down to the patients which they interact with in various health insti...