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Mental health informatics is a branch of health or clinical informatics focused on the use of information technology (IT) and information to improve mental health. Like health informatics, mental health informatics is a multidisciplinary field that promotes care delivery, research and education as well as the technology and methodologies required to implement it.

Metrics and coding

 * Terminology and coding systems such as the (DSM)
 * Specific mental health assessment and diagnostic systems

Data collection and storage systems
Systematic collection of information is fundamental to sucessful practices. Collecting data useful for mental illness diagnosis and treatment is challenging, as we lack quantitative biomarkers that might be used in standard health informatics, such as body temperature or blood pressure. Largely, current diagnosis and treatment is driven by clinical interviews between professionals and patients. Interviews are not only difficult to draw standardized data from because of diverse individual experience, condition, and accuracy of a patient's memory. Rapid advancements in computation and storage systems have the potential to transform this data collection process. For example, a 2014 study in Ireland explored the use of a smartphone application to record daily mood and thoughts. Such a collection process would provide plentiful standardized data less afflicted by patient recollection issues.


 * Integration of mental health function into electronic health record systems (EHRs) and larger organisational systems

Telehealth
Telehealth, telemedicine and telepsychiatry are new care delivery methods made possible by information technology. Specifically, there is a body of research investigating the use of smartphones to deliver treatment suggestions or treatment reminders in the context of mental health.

Data analysis
On a macro-scale, study of the incidence of mental health in a public health and epidemiological context.

Need for mental health informatics
The need for and application of health informatics in primary and secondary health care has been well established in developed countries for 20 years or more. The application of informatics in mental health has not become as pervasive, in spite of professional recognition the domain appearing well suited to computerisation and the need for quantified outcome evidence. There also may be a professional reluctance to effect changes in established working patterns that the introduction of systems necessarily entails.

Concerns
Data and information in health informatics are inherently private and personal. Pervasive software systems designed to help diagnose and treat mental health symptoms expose a privacy vulnerability and will likely require regulatory standards and data protection compliance such as HIIPA to protect patients. **ADD CITATION** A major impediment may be societal stigma associated with mental disorders as well as increased sensitivity about protecting the privacy and confidentiality of records in mental health care.