Health IT is a major field of investment in support of healthcare delivery. While many health IT systems are efficient and welcomed by their users, and are essential to modern healthcare, this is not the case for all. Unfortunately, some systems cause user frustration and result in inefficiency in use, and a few are known to have inconvenienced patients or even caused harm.

Initiated by the EFMI and IMIA working groups on health IT evaluation, an international group of experts developed the idea of evidence-based health informatics.

This resulting book “Evidence-Based Health Informatics – Promoting Safety and Efficiency Through Scientific Methods and Ethical Policy” has just been published by IOS Press.

The book addresses the need for better understanding of the importance of robust evidence to support health IT and to optimize investment in it; it gives insight into health IT evidence and evaluation as its primary source; and it promotes health informatics as an underpinning science demonstrating the same ethical rigour and proof of net benefit as is expected of other applied health technologies.

The book is available as hard copy and as open access e-book at http://ebooks.iospress.nl/volume/evidence-based-health-informatics-promoting-safety-and-efficiency-through-scientific-methods-and-ethical-policy.