The best way to learn about a subject, I now realise, is to write a book about it. Another good way is to teach it. In 1999, University College London (UCL) started a postgraduate programme in Health Informatics. As the programme director it was largely my responsibility to define the curriculum, a somewhat daunting task in a new and ill-defined subject. I decided, early on, that students should take an introductory module that would give them a grounding in the necessary theory and would also provide a survey of the different problems and applications that make up the field of Health Informatics. The module was called ‘Principles of.
