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What Is Primary Care Informatics?

Affiliation of the author: Primary Care Informatics, Department of Community Health Sciences, St. George's Hospital Medical School, London, UK

Correspondence and reprints: Simon de Lusignan, BSc, MBBS, MSc, MRCGP, Primary Care Informatics, Department of Community Health Sciences, Hunter Wing, St. George's Hospital Medical School, London SW17 0RE, England; e-mail: <slusigna{at}sghms.ac.uk>.

Received for publication: 07/16/02; accepted for publication: 02/23/03.

Primary care informatics is an emerging academic discipline that remains undefined. The unique nature of primary care necessitates the development of its own informatics discipline. A definition of primary care informatics is proposed, which encompasses the distinctive nature of primary care. The core concepts and theory that should underpin it are described. Primary care informatics is defined as a science and as a subset of health informatics. The proposed definition is intended to focus the development of a generalizable core theory for this informatics subspecialty.

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