Welcome from the Chief Health Information Officer Heading link

a man with short brown hair wearing a blue suit jacket, white shirt and red necktie, smiling into the camera

The field of health informatics continues to evolve – and that’s no exception here at UI Health. As the Chief Health Information Officer and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs I am invested in building a robust environment for how our organization and can best produce, learn from and utilize our health information.

This interdisciplinary field relies upon the expertise of individuals from across the spectrum of the educational, research and clinical care delivery enterprise. Through the efforts of the team featured among these pages and many others across the university, we strive to effectively study and pursue uses of biomedical data and information that supports improved human health.

Please explore the content featured here and feel free to contact the office of the Chief Health Information Officer by emailing chio@uic.edu with additional comments or questions.

Karl Kochendorfer, MD, FAAFP
Chief Health Information Officer
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs

What is Health Informatics? Heading link

pyramid diagram with four tiers, from the bottom up: Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom

Health informatics is the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving and decision making, motivated by efforts to improve human health.

What it IS – and what it IS NOT. 

Health informatics is not IT; information technology is hardware, software, security, authentication, etc.

Informatics includes the use of IT, change management, human-computer interactions, risk management, organizational behavior, workflow redesign, computable language, productivity improvement, safety, quality, evaluation, and more.

Informatics is integrated, multi-disciplinary and flexible.