5 Great Podcasts for Health Informatics - Online Associate's Degrees

Pharmacy, IT, & Me: Your Informatics Pharmacist Podcast
Public Health Perspectives
Healthcare Information Security Podcast
Healthcare Informatics Magazine Podcast
Inform Me, Informatics

People who work in electronic medical records and information systems should check out these five great podcasts for health informatics. Each of these podcasts has a different perspective, but their general focus is around how technology is transforming healthcare and medical records. Spending some time each day listening to one or more episodes of these podcasts is a good way to keep in touch with the latest tools and technology for healthcare information systems.

What Makes a Good Health Informatics Podcast?

Before you dive into the world of podcasts, it’s important to understand what you’re listening to and how it can benefit your personal and professional development.

For example, one of the advantages of listening to a health informatics podcast is staying informed about current events in the industry. As you’re probably aware, healthcare is a fast-changing field, and new breakthroughs happen every day. There’s also constant revision to standards and practices as well as fresh upgrades on tools and software.

How do you stay on top of this deluge of information? One way is with healthcare podcasts: They can keep you appraised of everything that’s going on the industry by providing news, updates, debates and even speculation and predictions about the future. However, you’ll need to make sure that the podcast is current. Don’t waste your time with old or outdated podcasts that may contain irrelevant information.

Another sign of a good health informatics podcast is when it offers multiple voices and perspectives. Rather than listening to one person’s opinion, you can engage with the viewpoints of various experts to get a fuller, more nuanced idea of what’s going on within your industry and why it matters.

Last but not least, a good health informatics podcast will be focused on both healthcare and informatics. This might sound obvious, but since there can be a lot of overlap in fields involving medicine, healthcare administration, information systems and IT, it’s easy to get drawn into podcasts that aren’t particularly targeted towards or specializing in health informatics. Try and be discerning about the podcasts that you download, especially if you’re listening to health informatics podcasts for career benefits.

Top Five Health Informatics Podcasts

1. Pharmacy, IT, & Me: Your Informatics Pharmacist Podcast

The Pharmacy, IT, & Me: Your Informatics Pharmacist Podcast is about different aspects of informatics and technology in pharmacy and pharmacology. Its goal is to leverage health informatics in order to educate workers within the field and thereby provide a better and more satisfied patient experience.

The podcast is hosted by Tony Dao, who is an informatics pharmacist himself. He usually creates episodes with a central theme about something related to pharmacological health informatics. Some of the topics have included patient identifiers, data mining, pharmacologic education, supply chain analytics and how technology can increase medication safety.

In addition to talking about current and standard topics within the industry, Dao has also tackled lesser-known subjects such as electronic medical record adoption and algorithmic matching in client registries. This gives his podcast a unique collection of knowledge that’s suitable for both newcomers to the industry and experienced professionals who want to do deep dives into niche areas of interest.

If you aren’t working in the pharmaceutical field, the podcast might still be interesting to you thanks to its coverage of ever-relevant topics such as professional development organizational readiness. You might be looking at them through a pharmacology lens, but they’ll still be pertinent to health informatics workers of all disciplines.

Most episodes of the podcast include an interview with a pharmacist or health informatics professional to offer multiple perspectives on ideas, issues and debates. There are also updates about what’s new in health informatics or the healthcare industry as a whole. There are a few new episodes each week and more than 250 episodes in total.

If you’re specializing in pharmacology during your work as a health informatician, consider the podcast Pharmacy, IT, & Me: Your Informatics Pharmacist. It offers a lot of relevant information for those within the field. You might enjoy it even if you aren’t in the pharmacology field.

2. Public Health Perspectives Podcast

The Public Health Perspectives Podcast was created by the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice (JPHMP). Its goal is to strengthen the public health workforce by addressing topics of interest to students, professionals, academic researchers and anyone else with a stake in public health.

As you might have guessed from the name, many topics of the Public Health Perspectives Podcast revolve around public health, including medicine, data collection, electronic medical records, privacy, confidentiality and general public health policies. Some of these topics have also included health informatics and “smart” communities as well as the role of data in promoting diversity and inclusion in public health.

It isn’t a podcast focused exclusively on health informatics, which is something that you’ll need to keep in mind while listening, but it can still offer salient ideas and perspectives on your industry if you’re a health informatician employed in a public health role. It can also serve as a peek into the public health sphere if you’re practicing in another field but curious about the similarities and differences to your own line of work.

The Public Health Perspectives Podcast includes regular guest interviews, so if it’s important to you to hear multiple perspectives on the issues, it crosses off that check mark. The experts are usually given their own episodes to talk about relevant topics in their specific area of expertise. For example, one episode might be called “Gregory Sunshine on CDC’s Public Health Emergency Law Online Training” while another might be titled “LaTonya Bynum on Preparing for the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) Examination.”

All episodes are available for free on the JPHMP website. The audio files are hosted on SoundCloud. Episode lengths are usually kept short and sweet at 15 – 20 minutes, so they’re ideal for listening on breaks or commutes.

Though it isn’t dedicated to health informatics, the Public Health Perspectives Podcast can still be utilized as a resource for health informatics professionals. It offers a deep well of knowledge as well as advice and opinions from well-regarded individuals in the healthcare field, so it can serve as a valuable tool for those who are working or even just considering a role in healthcare.

3. Healthcare Information Security Podcast

The Healthcare Information Security Podcast was created by the Information Security Media Group (ISMG). Like its name suggests, its primary focus is security. Its objective is to raise awareness of common data and privacy issues in addition to keeping the workforce appraised and prepared for threats of all kinds.

Typical subjects for the podcast include data breaches, encryption techniques, cyber insurance, healthcare information privacy and the security of the Internet of Things. Other, more specialized topics have included artificial intelligence, smart TV risks and the threats of ransomware and doxing in today’s medical tech. Episode titles include “Is White House Crackdown on Ransomware Having Any Effect?” and “Wait, Watch, Disrupt: How Police Keep Targeting Cybercrime.”

Notably, the podcast covers security for a variety of healthcare settings, including hospitals, health clinics and physician’s offices. It doesn’t focus exclusively on security for large corporations. This keeps it relevant to healthcare and health informatics workers employed throughout the industry.

The podcast gets updated about once per week. There are almost 2,000 episodes, so there’s an entire vault of knowledge to explore, and all audio tracks are available on both the ISMG website and the Apple Podcast app.

Many episodes include a guest interview of a cybersecurity expert who works in healthcare administration and informatics. Guests have included a security researcher from McAfee Enterprises, a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) from AdventHealth, and the CEO of CynergisTek.

All things considered, if you want to learn more about security in health informatics, the Healthcare Information Security Podcast can be a good place to start. It’ll keep you current on the issues of today while also providing an extensive archive for your perusal of older topics.

4. Healthcare Informatics Magazine Podcast

The Healthcare Informatics Magazine Podcast is meant for Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Medical Information Officers (CMIOs) and other high-level health informatics professionals. It’s a very technical podcast with a focus on things like data security for health information, security for hospital data networks and operational systems, and collection and analysis for HIPAA and electronic medical records.

The podcast was founded by the Healthcare Innovation Group and often includes variations of the topics presented as articles on their website. Episodes are short, and they’re available for both iPhones and Androids through the Podbean Podcast app.

In addition to the ever-important subjects of data and security, the Healthcare Informatics Magazine Podcast also covers things like patient safety, meaningful use policies, hospital administration and point-of-care technologies. It doesn’t forget the human element even as it plunges deeply into technical topics related to ARRA, HITECH and EHRs.

The podcast also focuses on the future: It frequently discusses not just contemporary issues and breakthroughs but how the industry might evolve and adapt over time. For example, one episode covers blockchain technology in healthcare as well as cyber threats that involve healthcare information systems, and the discussions explore tomorrow’s outlook for digital data systems as well as today’s challenges.

The Healthcare Informatics Magazine Podcast might not be for everyone. It has a broad range of focus within its field, but it’s aimed at specific professionals who want to stay on top of news and issues related to their own line of work.

If you’re interested in the IT side of informatics, however, the Healthcare Informatics Magazine Podcast can be a meaningful resource for study in addition to a fascinating look at how experts within the field are looking at challenges, threats and programs. It’s also connected to an equally impressive website that can be your next stop in health informatics education. You might find it worth your time to check out both of them.

5. Inform Me, Informatics Podcast

Created by the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII), the Inform Me, Informatics Podcast is dedicated to public health information systems and technology. It has a strong focus on person-to-person communication as host Piper Hale interviews everyone from top experts in niche specialties to everyday admins, educators and healthcare workers. In its own words, it “tells stories from the field of public health informatics” all across the board.

Most episodes are focused on the interviewee’s area of interest, and topics have included health data ethics, predictive modeling for disease outbreaks, racial disparities in public health infrastructure, and challenges in using health data. Some of the episodes also offer in-depth looks at specialized topics such as using information systems to map the opioid epidemic in Colorado.

Another area of note is classification software. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people who work in healthcare informatics routinely use classification software for assigning codes in order to conduct data analysis on information. This makes the Inform Me, Informatics Podcast a relevant and valuable source of information for current informatics professionals.

Equally as valuable are the multiple perspectives offered by the podcast’s rotating spotlight. You’ll hear many voices within this podcast, and everyone brings different viewpoints to challenge and inspire listeners in equal measure. When Hale isn’t interviewing anyone specific, she’ll invite on guest speakers to relate their professional experience in health informatics and public health to the topic at hand. Some episodes even take a “day in the life” approach to jobs within the industry, so if you’re considering a job or career change in health informatics, you can get an inside look at what it’s really like.

The Inform Me, Informatics Podcast is a health informatics podcast that can be advantageous to both newcomers and experienced professionals in the field. Whether you’re an entry-level employee trying to build your knowledge bank or an experienced informatician looking to stay current with contemporary models and practices of public health, this is a podcast that can help.

Conclusion

These are just a few health informatics podcasts that can enrich your knowledge, broaden your horizons and prepare you for employment in a fast-growing field. Each of these podcasts can help a person who works in health informatics stay on top of new research, tools and technology that could help them do their jobs. They can also listen to the episodes of these podcasts in order to keep up with trends or learn about what other professionals are doing. All of these five great podcasts for health informatics offer motivation and new information for technology and healthcare professionals.

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