Mental Health Informatics

Mental Health Informatics offers a comprehensive examination of contemporary issues in mental health that focuses on the innovative use of computers and other information technology in support of patient care, education, services delivery, and research in the field of mental health services. This text deals with resources, devices, and formalized methods for optimizing the storage, retrieval, and management of information for problem solving and decision-making in mental health.

Mental health informatics is an interdisciplinary field based upon computer and information sciences, the cognitive and decision sciences, public health and mental health (including epidemiology), and telecommunications. Researchers in informatics have discovered new methods and techniques to enhance health and mental health care, scientific and applied research, and education through information technology.

The fourteen chapters are divided into four main parts, including: 1) an introduction to informatics, public health, and mental health; 2) an overview of the ethical, legal, services delivery, and organizational issues in data/records standards and technology adoption; 3) discusses research in today's online environment, addressing issues including research competencies, standards for literature reviews, constructing search strategies, and synthesizing findings; and 4) provides a discussion of the globalization of information and future issues in policy and practice in mental health informatics.

Ardis Hanson is Research Coordinator in the College of Behavioral & Community Sciences at the University of South Florida. She previously served as Library Director at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida. She received her bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from the University of Tampa and her Master's Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of South Florida. She has presented at the USF Symposium on 21st Century Teaching Technologies for the past three years, showcasing innovative software applications. She is the Senior Editor of the text Building a Virtual Library (Information Science Publishing, 2003) and has published (with Bruce Lubotsky Levin) numerous chapters on mental health services, most recently in the following textbooks: Introduction to Health Care Delivery, Fifth Edition (Jones & Bartlett, 2012); Mental Health Services: A Public Health Perspective, Third Edition (Oxford University Press, 2010); and A Public Health Perspective of Women's Mental Health (Springer, 2010). Ms. Hanson is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida.

Bruce Lubotsky Levin, DrPH, MPH, FABHM, is Associate Professor and Head of the Graduate Studies in Behavioral Health Program at the College of Behavioral & Community Sciences and the College of Public Health, both at the University of South Florida. He also is Adjunct Associate Professor of Health Services Research & Administration at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, a peer reviewed, scholarly journal. He also is the Senior Editor of a number of textbooks, most recently including: Mental Health Services: A Public Health Perspective, Third Edition (Oxford University Press, 2010); A Public Health Perspective of Women's Mental Health (Springer, 2010); and Introduction to Public Health for Pharmacists (Jones & Bartlett, 2007). He has written numerous chapters and articles on behavioral health services. Dr. Levin earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin and his graduate degrees from The University of Texas. His research interests include managed behavioral health care, mental health policy, graduate behavioral health education, and mental health informatics. He currently teaches graduate behavioral health courses at the University of South Florida College of Public Health.