Day: 27 March 2009

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The development of Willyang.ca

I always wanted to have my own website, even before I knew the internet existed.  I always thought it would be nice to have a central spot where ideas can be shared.  The year when I graduated from the University of Victoria, I started to get into website development.  My friend, Marc Huot, helped me setup willyang.ca, and that’s how this journey began.

The first version of Willyang.ca was very basic. It was made in built-in software that came with my MacBook Pro called iWeb. It satisfied my website owning dream for a couple of weeks.

Then the second version of Willyang.ca came along. I went for help from the Internet and looked up some PHP and CSS codes and had my second try of the website. It was fun and much more flexible than making a website from software. I was able to change the style of the site however I wanted. Though it was time consuming, it was rewarding at the same time.

And now, Willyang.ca has reached a new era. Through Marc, I learned WordPress and Joomla. After a bit of researching on the two products, I’ve decided on a template from WordPress. My friend, Kelvin Lau, helped me with the installation part of WordPress, and it has been very helpful so far. WordPress makes sharing information a lot easier. It really takes away the coding part of website development and allows me to focus on the content of the site over the style. If the last website was made for viewers to get information, this new site is for people to share information.

My wife, Anya, and I also have a website: Willandanya.ca. Please feel free to browse our pictures and updates. Thank you.

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Health Informatics?

Whenever I tell people about the Masters of Health Informatics program at the University of Victoria, they always ask what Health Informatics is.  I guess to a certain extent, the term Health Informatics is still fairly new.  Here is a brief introduction of what Health Informatics really is.

Health Informtics is the intersection of information science, computer science, and health care.  It deals with the resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and biomedicine.  Health informatics tools include not only computers but also clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, and information and communication systems.  Sometimes,  Health Informatics is referred to as Medical Informatics.

Health Informaticians are expected to have knowledge in:

  • architectures of Electronic Health Records and other health information systems used for billing, scheduling, and research;
  • decision support systems in healthcare;
  • standards and integration profiles to facilitate the exchange of information between healthcare information systems;
  • controlled medical vocabularies;

If you want to know more about Health Informatics, Wikipedia has an in-depth explanation on its development, location, legal aspects, and management. 

Reference:

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_informatics