Can Health/Medical Informatics be Regarded as a Separate Discipline?

Preparing for change: medical informatics international initiatives for health care and biomedical research

The intention of this paper is to reflect on the development of medical informatics as a discipline and on the development of IMIA, the International Medical Informatics Association, as its international organization. IMIA is the international organization in health and biomedical informatics, which has the goal of stimulating and communicating high quality research, education and application, with medical informatics now being one of the central disciplines for achieving health for the people in societies worldwide. The need for new international initiatives is discussed and IMIA's recently approved Strategic Plan as well as its joint initiative with WHO are presented as examples.

Fifteen years medical information sciences: the Amsterdam curriculum

OBJECTIVES

To inform the medical informatics community on the rational, goals, evolution and present contents of the Medical Information Sciences program of the University of Amsterdam and our achievements.

METHODS

We elaborate on the history of our program, the philosophy, contents and organizational structure of the present-day curriculum. Besides, we describe the various didactic approaches in the program and the rational for these. Finally, we analyze the contents of our program in respect to the IMIA recommendations for dedicated programs in health and medical informatics.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Since its foundation in 1987, the program has undergone several major modifications. From a degree program following medical school it developed into a full-fledged, dedicated 4-year program on medical information sciences training high-school graduates for a master degree. The curriculum has been based from its outset within the University of Amsterdam-Faculty of Medicine. This organizational structure leaves ample opportunity for integration of the informatics-oriented components with the medical and health care-oriented components in the program. Student-centered approaches are heavily employed in the program, emphasizing students' critical appraisal and a style of life-long learning. Overall, our program follows the IMIA recommendations with slightly more focus on medicine and health care organization.

Medical informatics in an undergraduate curriculum: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

There is strong support for educating physicians in medical informatics, and the benefits of such education have been clearly identified. Despite this, North American medical schools do not routinely provide education in medical informatics.

METHODS

We conducted a qualitative study to identify issues facing the introduction of medical informatics into an undergraduate medical curriculum. Nine key informants at the University of Toronto medical school were interviewed, and their responses were transcribed and analyzed to identify consistent themes.

RESULTS

The field of medical informatics was not clearly understood by participants. There was, however, strong support for medical informatics education, and the benefits of such education were consistently identified. In the curriculum we examined, medical informatics education was delivered informally and inconsistently through mainly optional activities. Issues facing the introduction of medical informatics education included: an unclear understanding of the discipline; faculty and administrative detractors and, the dense nature of the existing undergraduate medical curriculum.

CONCLUSIONS

The identified issues may present serious obstacles to the introduction of medical informatics education into an undergraduate medicine curriculum, and we present some possible strategies for addressing these issues.

Aims and tasks of medical informatics

Ten major long-term aims and tasks, so to speak 'grand challenges', for research in the field of medical informatics, including health informatics, are proposed and described. These are the further development of methods and tools of information processing for: (1) diagnostics ('the visible body'); (2) therapy ('medical intervention with as little strain on the patient as possible'); (3) therapy simulation; (4) early-recognition and prevention; (5) compensating physical handicaps; (6) health consulting ('the informed patient'); (7) health reporting; (8) health care information systems; (9) medical documentation and (10) comprehensive documentation of medical knowledge and knowledge-based decision support. Work is, in part, already in progress. To all these aims and tasks medical informatics can and may be should make substantial contributions. Prior to outlining the above aims and tasks, an account is given of the meaning of medical informatics, of the objective it pursues in general and of its achievements so far. The present paper intends to contribute to a broad public discussion of the aims and tasks for research in the field of medical informatics.

A systematic view on medical informatics

Medical informatics is defined as the scientific discipline concerned with the systematic processing of data, information and knowledge in medicine and health care. The domain of medical informatics (including health informatics), its aim, methods and tools, and its relevance to other disciplines in medicine and health sciences are outlined. It is recognized that one of the major tasks of medical informatics is modelling processes. In this context, biological, communication, decision, engineering, educational, organizational and computational processes are distinguished and described.