Healthcare informatics and informatics
Three acronyms that get used interchangeably and are not the same thing, then a rating of your own organisation that has to be defensible to people who work there.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 25, 2026
The rating slide is the one that needs a criterion
Start with the definitional work, because the three record types differ on a single principle and getting it right makes the rest of the deck coherent. An electronic medical record is the practice's own chart, bounded by one organisation; an electronic health record is designed to travel across organisations, which is why interoperability is a property of the EHR concept rather than an add-on; and a personal health record is controlled by the patient, who decides what goes in and who sees it. The distinguishing question in every case is who owns and controls the record, not what technology it runs on, and a deck that says the EHR is bigger has missed it. The same discipline applies to clinical against administrative information systems, which are separated by purpose, by user and by what their data are used to prove. Getting the principle right on the first slide makes every later comparison easier to write.
The rating question is where most decks go soft, because rating your own employer invites either flattery or complaint. Fix that by declaring a criterion before the number: adoption breadth, interoperability with outside organisations, clinical decision support in use, downtime and reliability, and clinician-reported usability are all defensible axes, and a score against named axes is an assessment rather than an opinion. The strengths and weaknesses then fall out of the same axes instead of being invented separately. Weaknesses are where care is needed if you are naming your own organisation and its actual vendor, so phrase them as observations about configuration and workflow rather than about people, and be specific enough to be useful: an alert override rate, a documentation burden, a duplicate entry between two systems that never got interfaced. Specificity of that kind reads as assessment; a general observation about needing better training does not.
Likely learning objectives
- Distinguish EMR, EHR and PHR by who controls the record.
- Separate clinical from administrative information systems by purpose and user.
- State an explicit criterion before rating an organisation's IT status.
- Derive strengths and weaknesses from the same axes as the rating.
Assignment instructions
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Assignment Healthcare informatics and informatics Healthcare informatics and informatics Part one: Initial post should be 400 words. (My topic is on Health Care informatics) Based on your research, what conclusions have you been able to draw related to your final presentation topic? Please describe your final presentation topic and the conclusions you have drawn from the literature you have researched. Are practice changes recommended for your current practice? Why or why not? Part Two: Assignment: This week is an APA PowerPoint (PPT) with 15-20 slides (SPEAKER NOTES ARE REQUIRED). Three scholarly sources are required. Be sure to develop APA PPTs with correct title slide, objective slide, content slides (minimum 15 slides for content), reference slide. Use correct APA format for citations for PPTs and references. There are several sections to this PPT which should be separated using slide headings to organize each section in the PPT. The Rubric for grading this week is an PPT Rubric – please review. Differentiate between electronic health record (EHR), electronic medical record (EMR), and personal health record (PHR) Differentiate between clinical information systems (CIS) and administrative information systems (AIS) What systems are currently being utilized at your organization? (My organization uses Epic Systems: please research on it) If you had to rate the information-technology status of your organization, what score would you give them? Identify two strength and two weaknesses of the current information-technology being used.
What the two parts require
- 01Part one: a 400-word initial post on conclusions drawn from your research for the final presentation topic, and whether practice changes are recommended.
- 02Part two: an APA PowerPoint of 15-20 slides with speaker notes, three scholarly sources, title, objective, content and reference slides.
- 03A differentiation of electronic health record, electronic medical record and personal health record.
- 04A differentiation of clinical information systems and administrative information systems.
- 05Identification of the systems currently in use at your organisation.
- 06A rating of the organisation's information-technology status.
- 07Two strengths and two weaknesses of the current information technology.
Definitions, systems, and the assessment
Objectives
State what the audience will be able to distinguish after the deck.
What the assessor is likely looking for
Objectives as capabilities.
EMR, EHR and PHR
Define each by ownership, boundary and intended movement.
What the assessor is likely looking for
Control as the distinguishing principle.
Clinical versus administrative systems
Separate by purpose, primary user and what the data prove.
What the assessor is likely looking for
A functional rather than technical distinction.
Systems in use here
Describe the organisation's actual deployment and its scope.
What the assessor is likely looking for
Deployment described, not the vendor's marketing.
The rating and its criteria
Name the axes, score against each, then give the overall.
What the assessor is likely looking for
A score that could be defended to a colleague.
Two strengths, two weaknesses
Draw both from the axes and make each concrete.
What the assessor is likely looking for
Specific, workflow-level observations.
Where the definitions and maturity criteria sit
Recommended databases
- MedlinePlus
- PubMed Central
- CMS
- NCBI Bookshelf
Search sequence
- 1.Read authoritative definitions of the three record types before writing the slides.
- 2.Look up interoperability requirements to ground the EHR definition.
- 3.Find literature on EHR usability for the weakness axis.
- 4.Check exchange participation research for the interoperability axis.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Personal Health Records
MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine · 2024
Personal health records, for the patient-controlled definition.
Promoting Interoperability Programs
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · 2025
Interoperability programmes, for why exchange is intrinsic to the EHR concept.
The association between perceived electronic health record usability and professional burnout among US nurses
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(8), 1632-1641 · 2021
EHR usability and burnout, for a defensible usability axis in the rating.
Successes and Barriers of Health Information Exchange Participation Across Hospitals in South Carolina From 2014 to 2020
JMIR Medical Informatics · 2023
Health information exchange participation, for the interoperability axis.
Implementing electronic health records in hospitals: a systematic literature review
BMC Health Services Research · 2014
Implementing EHRs in hospitals, for what organisational deployment involves.
Before you submit
Common mistakes
- Distinguishing EMR and EHR by size or sophistication rather than by control.
- Giving a rating with no stated criterion.
- Naming strengths and weaknesses unrelated to the rating axes.
- Describing the vendor product instead of the organisation's use of it.
- Omitting speaker notes, which the brief requires explicitly.
Submission checklist
- Is the EMR, EHR and PHR distinction based on control?
- Are CIS and AIS separated by purpose and user?
- Is a rating criterion declared before the score?
- Do the strengths and weaknesses map to the rating axes?
- Are speaker notes present on every slide?
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read Brinevia's academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Maren Caldwell
MSN, RN, CNE
Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation
Maren is a registered nurse with over 15 years of clinical and educational experience in medical-surgical nursing. She writes on NCLEX preparation, patient care fundamentals, pharmacology and evidence-based practice.

Reviewed by
Dr. Tessa Redmond
DNP, RN, CNE
Evidence-based practice and clinical education
Tessa is a doctorally-prepared nurse educator. She reviews Brinevia content for clinical accuracy and alignment with current evidence-based guidelines.