A New Way to Manage TCGA Data - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Rachel Karchin, of Johns Hopkins University's Department of Biomedical Engineering, is developing a tool that will help researchers sort through the massive amounts of genomic data gathered from TCGA's ovarian cancer tumor samples.

TCGA Bladder Cancer Study Reveals Potential Drug Targets - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Investigators with the TCGA Research Network have identified new potential therapeutic targets for a major form of bladder cancer, including important genes and pathways that are disrupted in the disease.

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA): The next stage - TCGA

Cancer.gov

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the NIH research program that has helped set the standards for characterizing the genomic underpinnings of dozens of cancers on a large scale, is moving to its next phase.

TSVdb: a web-tool for TCGA splicing variants analysis.

PubMed

Sun, Wenjie; Duan, Ting; Ye, Panmeng; Chen, Kelie; Zhang, Guanling; Lai, Maode; Zhang, Honghe

2018-05-29

Collaborative projects such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) have generated various -omics and clinical data on cancer. Many computational tools have been developed to facilitate the study of the molecular characterization of tumors using data from the TCGA. Alternative splicing of a gene produces splicing variants, and accumulating evidence has revealed its essential role in cancer-related processes, implying the urgent need to discover tumor-specific isoforms and uncover their potential functions in tumorigenesis. We developed TSVdb, a web-based tool, to explore alternative splicing based on TCGA samples with 30 clinical variables from 33 tumors. TSVdb has an integrated and well-proportioned interface for visualization of the clinical data, gene expression, usage of exons/junctions and splicing patterns. Researchers can interpret the isoform expression variations between or across clinical subgroups and estimate the relationships between isoforms and patient prognosis. TSVdb is available at http://www.tsvdb.com , and the source code is available at https://github.com/wenjie1991/TSVdb . TSVdb will inspire oncologists and accelerate isoform-level advances in cancer research.

Cancer Research by the Numbers - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Biostatistician Dr. Jill Barnholtz-Sloan strives to make a difference in the field of cancer research while inspiring her students at the same time. Learn more about how she uses TCGA data in her career in this TCGA in Action Researcher Profile.

TopFed: TCGA tailored federated query processing and linking to LOD.

PubMed

Saleem, Muhammad; Padmanabhuni, Shanmukha S; Ngomo, Axel-Cyrille Ngonga; Iqbal, Aftab; Almeida, Jonas S; Decker, Stefan; Deus, Helena F

2014-01-01

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional effort to catalogue genetic mutations responsible for cancer using genome analysis techniques. One of the aims of this project is to create a comprehensive and open repository of cancer related molecular analysis, to be exploited by bioinformaticians towards advancing cancer knowledge. However, devising bioinformatics applications to analyse such large dataset is still challenging, as it often requires downloading large archives and parsing the relevant text files. Therefore, it is making it difficult to enable virtual data integration in order to collect the critical co-variates necessary for analysis. We address these issues by transforming the TCGA data into the Semantic Web standard Resource Description Format (RDF), link it to relevant datasets in the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud and further propose an efficient data distribution strategy to host the resulting 20.4 billion triples data via several SPARQL endpoints. Having the TCGA data distributed across multiple SPARQL endpoints, we enable biomedical scientists to query and retrieve information from these SPARQL endpoints by proposing a TCGA tailored federated SPARQL query processing engine named TopFed. We compare TopFed with a well established federation engine FedX in terms of source selection and query execution time by using 10 different federated SPARQL queries with varying requirements. Our evaluation results show that TopFed selects on average less than half of the sources (with 100% recall) with query execution time equal to one third to that of FedX. With TopFed, we aim to offer biomedical scientists a single-point-of-access through which distributed TCGA data can be accessed in unison. We believe the proposed system can greatly help researchers in the biomedical domain to carry out their research effectively with TCGA as the amount and diversity of data exceeds the ability of local resources to handle its retrieval and

TCGA head Neck

Cancer.gov

Investigators with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have discovered genomic differences – with potentially important clinical implications – in head and neck cancers caused by infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV).

Using Forensics to Untangle Batch Effects in TCGA Data - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Rehan Akbani, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center developed a tool called MBatch to detect, diagnose, and correct batch effects in TCGA data. Read more about batch effects in this Case Study.

Continued multidisciplinary project-based learning - implementation in health informatics.

PubMed

Wessel, C; Spreckelsen, C

2009-01-01

Problem- and project-based learning are approved methods to train students, graduates and post-graduates in scientific and other professional skills. The students are trained on realistic scenarios in a broader context. For students specializing in health informatics we introduced continued multidisciplinary project-based learning (CM-PBL) at a department of medical informatics. The training approach addresses both students of medicine and students of computer science. The students are full members of an ongoing research project and develop a project-related application or module, or explore or evaluate a sub-project. Two teachers guide and review the students' work. The training on scientific work follows a workflow with defined milestones. The team acts as peer group. By participating in the research team's work the students are trained on professional skills. A research project on a web-based information system on hospitals built the scenario for the realistic context. The research team consisted of up to 14 active members at a time, who were scientists and students of computer science and medicine. The well communicated educational approach and team policy fostered the participation of the students. Formative assessment and evaluation showed a considerable improvement of the students' skills and a high participant satisfaction. Alternative education approaches such as project-based learning empower students to acquire scientific knowledge and professional skills, especially the ability of life-long learning, multidisciplinary team work and social responsibility.

Identification of druggable cancer driver genes amplified across TCGA datasets.

PubMed

Chen, Ying; McGee, Jeremy; Chen, Xianming; Doman, Thompson N; Gong, Xueqian; Zhang, Youyan; Hamm, Nicole; Ma, Xiwen; Higgs, Richard E; Bhagwat, Shripad V; Buchanan, Sean; Peng, Sheng-Bin; Staschke, Kirk A; Yadav, Vipin; Yue, Yong; Kouros-Mehr, Hosein

2014-01-01

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) projects have advanced our understanding of the driver mutations, genetic backgrounds, and key pathways activated across cancer types. Analysis of TCGA datasets have mostly focused on somatic mutations and translocations, with less emphasis placed on gene amplifications. Here we describe a bioinformatics screening strategy to identify putative cancer driver genes amplified across TCGA datasets. We carried out GISTIC2 analysis of TCGA datasets spanning 16 cancer subtypes and identified 486 genes that were amplified in two or more datasets. The list was narrowed to 75 cancer-associated genes with potential "druggable" properties. The majority of the genes were localized to 14 amplicons spread across the genome. To identify potential cancer driver genes, we analyzed gene copy number and mRNA expression data from individual patient samples and identified 42 putative cancer driver genes linked to diverse oncogenic processes. Oncogenic activity was further validated by siRNA/shRNA knockdown and by referencing the Project Achilles datasets. The amplified genes represented a number of gene families, including epigenetic regulators, cell cycle-associated genes, DNA damage response/repair genes, metabolic regulators, and genes linked to the Wnt, Notch, Hedgehog, JAK/STAT, NF-KB and MAPK signaling pathways. Among the 42 putative driver genes were known driver genes, such as EGFR, ERBB2 and PIK3CA. Wild-type KRAS was amplified in several cancer types, and KRAS-amplified cancer cell lines were most sensitive to KRAS shRNA, suggesting that KRAS amplification was an independent oncogenic event. A number of MAP kinase adapters were co-amplified with their receptor tyrosine kinases, such as the FGFR adapter FRS2 and the EGFR family adapters GRB2 and GRB7. The ubiquitin-like ligase DCUN1D1 and the histone methyltransferase NSD3 were also identified as novel putative cancer driver genes. We discuss the patient tailoring implications for existing cancer

Identification of Druggable Cancer Driver Genes Amplified across TCGA Datasets

PubMed Central

Chen, Ying; McGee, Jeremy; Chen, Xianming; Doman, Thompson N.; Gong, Xueqian; Zhang, Youyan; Hamm, Nicole; Ma, Xiwen; Higgs, Richard E.; Bhagwat, Shripad V.; Buchanan, Sean; Peng, Sheng-Bin; Staschke, Kirk A.; Yadav, Vipin; Yue, Yong; Kouros-Mehr, Hosein

2014-01-01

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) projects have advanced our understanding of the driver mutations, genetic backgrounds, and key pathways activated across cancer types. Analysis of TCGA datasets have mostly focused on somatic mutations and translocations, with less emphasis placed on gene amplifications. Here we describe a bioinformatics screening strategy to identify putative cancer driver genes amplified across TCGA datasets. We carried out GISTIC2 analysis of TCGA datasets spanning 14 cancer subtypes and identified 461 genes that were amplified in two or more datasets. The list was narrowed to 73 cancer-associated genes with potential “druggable” properties. The majority of the genes were localized to 14 amplicons spread across the genome. To identify potential cancer driver genes, we analyzed gene copy number and mRNA expression data from individual patient samples and identified 40 putative cancer driver genes linked to diverse oncogenic processes. Oncogenic activity was further validated by siRNA/shRNA knockdown and by referencing the Project Achilles datasets. The amplified genes represented a number of gene families, including epigenetic regulators, cell cycle-associated genes, DNA damage response/repair genes, metabolic regulators, and genes linked to the Wnt, Notch, Hedgehog, JAK/STAT, NF-KB and MAPK signaling pathways. Among the 40 putative driver genes were known driver genes, such as EGFR, ERBB2 and PIK3CA. Wild-type KRAS was amplified in several cancer types, and KRAS-amplified cancer cell lines were most sensitive to KRAS shRNA, suggesting that KRAS amplification was an independent oncogenic event. A number of MAP kinase adapters were co-amplified with their receptor tyrosine kinases, such as the FGFR adapter FRS2 and the EGFR family adapter GRB7. The ubiquitin-like ligase DCUN1D1 and the histone methyltransferase NSD3 were also identified as novel putative cancer driver genes. We discuss the patient tailoring implications for existing cancer drug

Using New Maps to Navigate Cancer Treatment - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Drs.Scott Hwang and Chad Holder of Emory University discuss the development of VARSARI and The Cancer Imaging Program's TCGA Radiology Initiative. Learn more about their and Dr. Carl Jaffe's work in this TCGA In Action Case Study.

TCGA_LowerGradeGliomas

Cancer.gov

TCGA researchers analyzed nearly 300 cases of diffuse low- and intermediate-grade gliomas, which together comprise lower-grade gliomas. LGGs occur mainly in adults and include astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas and oligoastrocytomas.

Proteome Characterization Centers - TCGA

Cancer.gov

The centers, a component of NCI’s Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, will analyze a subset of TCGA samples to define proteins translated from cancer genomes and their related biological processes.

David Haussler, Ph.D., Lectures on Cancer Genomics - TCGA

Cancer.gov

In this lecture, Dr. David Haussler provides a historical overview of the field of genomics leading up to TCGA, including the Cancer Genomics Hub at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the TCGA Pan-Cancer initiative.

TCGAbiolinks: an R/Bioconductor package for integrative analysis of TCGA data

PubMed Central

Colaprico, Antonio; Silva, Tiago C.; Olsen, Catharina; Garofano, Luciano; Cava, Claudia; Garolini, Davide; Sabedot, Thais S.; Malta, Tathiane M.; Pagnotta, Stefano M.; Castiglioni, Isabella; Ceccarelli, Michele; Bontempi, Gianluca; Noushmehr, Houtan

2016-01-01

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) research network has made public a large collection of clinical and molecular phenotypes of more than 10 000 tumor patients across 33 different tumor types. Using this cohort, TCGA has published over 20 marker papers detailing the genomic and epigenomic alterations associated with these tumor types. Although many important discoveries have been made by TCGA's research network, opportunities still exist to implement novel methods, thereby elucidating new biological pathways and diagnostic markers. However, mining the TCGA data presents several bioinformatics challenges, such as data retrieval and integration with clinical data and other molecular data types (e.g. RNA and DNA methylation). We developed an R/Bioconductor package called TCGAbiolinks to address these challenges and offer bioinformatics solutions by using a guided workflow to allow users to query, download and perform integrative analyses of TCGA data. We combined methods from computer science and statistics into the pipeline and incorporated methodologies developed in previous TCGA marker studies and in our own group. Using four different TCGA tumor types (Kidney, Brain, Breast and Colon) as examples, we provide case studies to illustrate examples of reproducibility, integrative analysis and utilization of different Bioconductor packages to advance and accelerate novel discoveries. PMID:26704973

TCGA and Its Vital Role in Understanding the Landscape of Somatic Alterations in Cancer - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Dr. Stephen Chanock, M.D., Director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics at the NCI, discusses how TCGA provides a strong foundation for understanding key biological alterations in cancer.

Human Connectome Project Informatics: quality control, database services, and data visualization

PubMed Central

Marcus, Daniel S.; Harms, Michael P.; Snyder, Abraham Z.; Jenkinson, Mark; Wilson, J Anthony; Glasser, Matthew F.; Barch, Deanna M.; Archie, Kevin A.; Burgess, Gregory C.; Ramaratnam, Mohana; Hodge, Michael; Horton, William; Herrick, Rick; Olsen, Timothy; McKay, Michael; House, Matthew; Hileman, Michael; Reid, Erin; Harwell, John; Coalson, Timothy; Schindler, Jon; Elam, Jennifer S.; Curtiss, Sandra W.; Van Essen, David C.

2013-01-01

The Human Connectome Project (HCP) has developed protocols, standard operating and quality control procedures, and a suite of informatics tools to enable high throughput data collection, data sharing, automated data processing and analysis, and data mining and visualization. Quality control procedures include methods to maintain data collection consistency over time, to measure head motion, and to establish quantitative modality-specific overall quality assessments. Database services developed as customizations of the XNAT imaging informatics platform support both internal daily operations and open access data sharing. The Connectome Workbench visualization environment enables user interaction with HCP data and is increasingly integrated with the HCP's database services. Here we describe the current state of these procedures and tools and their application in the ongoing HCP study. PMID:23707591

Web-TCGA: an online platform for integrated analysis of molecular cancer data sets.

PubMed

Deng, Mario; Brägelmann, Johannes; Schultze, Joachim L; Perner, Sven

2016-02-06

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a pool of molecular data sets publicly accessible and freely available to cancer researchers anywhere around the world. However, wide spread use is limited since an advanced knowledge of statistics and statistical software is required. In order to improve accessibility we created Web-TCGA, a web based, freely accessible online tool, which can also be run in a private instance, for integrated analysis of molecular cancer data sets provided by TCGA. In contrast to already available tools, Web-TCGA utilizes different methods for analysis and visualization of TCGA data, allowing users to generate global molecular profiles across different cancer entities simultaneously. In addition to global molecular profiles, Web-TCGA offers highly detailed gene and tumor entity centric analysis by providing interactive tables and views. As a supplement to other already available tools, such as cBioPortal (Sci Signal 6:pl1, 2013, Cancer Discov 2:401-4, 2012), Web-TCGA is offering an analysis service, which does not require any installation or configuration, for molecular data sets available at the TCGA. Individual processing requests (queries) are generated by the user for mutation, methylation, expression and copy number variation (CNV) analyses. The user can focus analyses on results from single genes and cancer entities or perform a global analysis (multiple cancer entities and genes simultaneously).

Genomic underpinnings of brain tumors - TCGA

Cancer.gov

TCGA researchers analyzed nearly 300 cases of diffuse low- and intermediate-grade gliomas, which together comprise lower-grade gliomas. LGGs occur mainly in adults and include astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas and oligoastrocytomas.

TCGA Workflow: Analyze cancer genomics and epigenomics data using Bioconductor packages

PubMed Central

Bontempi, Gianluca; Ceccarelli, Michele; Noushmehr, Houtan

2016-01-01

Biotechnological advances in sequencing have led to an explosion of publicly available data via large international consortia such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), and The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium (Roadmap). These projects have provided unprecedented opportunities to interrogate the epigenome of cultured cancer cell lines as well as normal and tumor tissues with high genomic resolution. The Bioconductor project offers more than 1,000 open-source software and statistical packages to analyze high-throughput genomic data. However, most packages are designed for specific data types (e.g. expression, epigenetics, genomics) and there is no one comprehensive tool that provides a complete integrative analysis of the resources and data provided by all three public projects. A need to create an integration of these different analyses was recently proposed. In this workflow, we provide a series of biologically focused integrative analyses of different molecular data. We describe how to download, process and prepare TCGA data and by harnessing several key Bioconductor packages, we describe how to extract biologically meaningful genomic and epigenomic data. Using Roadmap and ENCODE data, we provide a work plan to identify biologically relevant functional epigenomic elements associated with cancer. To illustrate our workflow, we analyzed two types of brain tumors: low-grade glioma (LGG) versus high-grade glioma (glioblastoma multiform or GBM). This workflow introduces the following Bioconductor packages: AnnotationHub, ChIPSeeker, ComplexHeatmap, pathview, ELMER, GAIA, MINET, RTCGAToolbox,  TCGAbiolinks. PMID:28232861

TCGA Workflow: Analyze cancer genomics and epigenomics data using Bioconductor packages.

PubMed

Silva, Tiago C; Colaprico, Antonio; Olsen, Catharina; D'Angelo, Fulvio; Bontempi, Gianluca; Ceccarelli, Michele; Noushmehr, Houtan

2016-01-01

Biotechnological advances in sequencing have led to an explosion of publicly available data via large international consortia such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), and The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Mapping Consortium (Roadmap). These projects have provided unprecedented opportunities to interrogate the epigenome of cultured cancer cell lines as well as normal and tumor tissues with high genomic resolution. The Bioconductor project offers more than 1,000 open-source software and statistical packages to analyze high-throughput genomic data. However, most packages are designed for specific data types (e.g. expression, epigenetics, genomics) and there is no one comprehensive tool that provides a complete integrative analysis of the resources and data provided by all three public projects. A need to create an integration of these different analyses was recently proposed. In this workflow, we provide a series of biologically focused integrative analyses of different molecular data. We describe how to download, process and prepare TCGA data and by harnessing several key Bioconductor packages, we describe how to extract biologically meaningful genomic and epigenomic data. Using Roadmap and ENCODE data, we provide a work plan to identify biologically relevant functional epigenomic elements associated with cancer. To illustrate our workflow, we analyzed two types of brain tumors: low-grade glioma (LGG) versus high-grade glioma (glioblastoma multiform or GBM). This workflow introduces the following Bioconductor packages: AnnotationHub, ChIPSeeker, ComplexHeatmap, pathview, ELMER, GAIA, MINET, RTCGAToolbox,  TCGAbiolinks.

TCGA2BED: extracting, extending, integrating, and querying The Cancer Genome Atlas.

PubMed

Cumbo, Fabio; Fiscon, Giulia; Ceri, Stefano; Masseroli, Marco; Weitschek, Emanuel

2017-01-03

Data extraction and integration methods are becoming essential to effectively access and take advantage of the huge amounts of heterogeneous genomics and clinical data increasingly available. In this work, we focus on The Cancer Genome Atlas, a comprehensive archive of tumoral data containing the results of high-throughout experiments, mainly Next Generation Sequencing, for more than 30 cancer types. We propose TCGA2BED a software tool to search and retrieve TCGA data, and convert them in the structured BED format for their seamless use and integration. Additionally, it supports the conversion in CSV, GTF, JSON, and XML standard formats. Furthermore, TCGA2BED extends TCGA data with information extracted from other genomic databases (i.e., NCBI Entrez Gene, HGNC, UCSC, and miRBase). We also provide and maintain an automatically updated data repository with publicly available Copy Number Variation, DNA-methylation, DNA-seq, miRNA-seq, and RNA-seq (V1,V2) experimental data of TCGA converted into the BED format, and their associated clinical and biospecimen meta data in attribute-value text format. The availability of the valuable TCGA data in BED format reduces the time spent in taking advantage of them: it is possible to efficiently and effectively deal with huge amounts of cancer genomic data integratively, and to search, retrieve and extend them with additional information. The BED format facilitates the investigators allowing several knowledge discovery analyses on all tumor types in TCGA with the final aim of understanding pathological mechanisms and aiding cancer treatments.

Enabling drug discovery project decisions with integrated computational chemistry and informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsui, Vickie; Ortwine, Daniel F.; Blaney, Jeffrey M.

2017-03-01

Computational chemistry/informatics scientists and software engineers in Genentech Small Molecule Drug Discovery collaborate with experimental scientists in a therapeutic project-centric environment. Our mission is to enable and improve pre-clinical drug discovery design and decisions. Our goal is to deliver timely data, analysis, and modeling to our therapeutic project teams using best-in-class software tools. We describe our strategy, the organization of our group, and our approaches to reach this goal. We conclude with a summary of the interdisciplinary skills required for computational scientists and recommendations for their training.

The Biomarker Knowledge System Informatics Pilot Project Supplement To The Biomarker Development Laboratory at Moffitt (Bedlam) — EDRN Public Portal

Cancer.gov

The Biomarker Knowledge System Informatics Pilot Project goal will develop network interfaces among databases that contain information about existing clinical populations and biospecimens and data relating to those specimens that are important in biomarker assay validation. This protocol comprises one of two that will comprise the Moffitt participation in the Biomarker Knowledge System Informatics Pilot Project. THIS PROTOCOL (58) is the Sput-Epi Database.

Latvian Education Informatization System LIIS

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bicevskis, Janis; Andzans, Agnis; Ikaunieks, Evalds; Medvedis, Inga; Straujums, Uldis; Vezis, Viesturs

2004-01-01

The Latvian Education Informatization System LIIS project covers the whole information grid: education content, management, information services, infrastructure and user training at several levels--schools, school boards and Ministry of Education and Science. Informatization is the maintained process of creating the technical, economical and…

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics.

PubMed

Liu, Jianfang; Lichtenberg, Tara; Hoadley, Katherine A; Poisson, Laila M; Lazar, Alexander J; Cherniack, Andrew D; Kovatich, Albert J; Benz, Christopher C; Levine, Douglas A; Lee, Adrian V; Omberg, Larsson; Wolf, Denise M; Shriver, Craig D; Thorsson, Vesteinn; Hu, Hai

2018-04-05

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Cancer Digital Slide Archive - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Dr. David Gutman and Dr. Lee Cooper developed The Cancer Digital Slide Archive (CDSA), a web platform for accessing pathology slide images of TCGA samples. Find out how they did it and how to use the CDSA website in this Case Study.

Cloud Technology May Widen Genomic Bottleneck - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Computational biologist Dr. Ilya Shmulevich suggests that renting cloud computing power might widen the bottleneck for analyzing genomic data. Learn more about his experience with the Cloud in this TCGA in Action Case Study.

Columbia University's Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel) Project

PubMed Central

Shea, Steven; Starren, Justin; Weinstock, Ruth S.; Knudson, Paul E.; Teresi, Jeanne; Holmes, Douglas; Palmas, Walter; Field, Lesley; Goland, Robin; Tuck, Catherine; Hripcsak, George; Capps, Linnea; Liss, David

2002-01-01

The Columbia University Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel) Project is a four-year demonstration project funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the overall goals of evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of telemedicine in the management of older patients with diabetes. The study is designed as a randomized controlled trial and is being conducted by a state-wide consortium in New York. Eligibility requires that participants have diabetes, are Medicare beneficiaries, and reside in federally designated medically underserved areas. A total of 1,500 participants will be randomized, half in New York City and half in other areas of the state. Intervention participants receive a home telemedicine unit that provides synchronous videoconferencing with a project-based nurse, electronic transmission of home fingerstick glucose and blood pressure data, and Web access to a project Web site. End points include glycosylated hemoglobin, blood pressure, and lipid levels; patient satisfaction; health care service utilization; and costs. The project is intended to provide data to help inform regulatory and reimbursement policies for electronically delivered health care services. PMID:11751803

Genomic features of lobular breast carcinoma - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Investigators with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have identified molecular characteristics of a type of breast cancer, invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), that distinguishes it from invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), the most common invasive breast cancer subtype.

The Interactions Between Clinical Informatics and Bioinformatics

PubMed Central

Altman, Russ B.

2000-01-01

For the past decade, Stanford Medical Informatics has combined clinical informatics and bioinformatics research and training in an explicit way. The interest in applying informatics techniques to both clinical problems and problems in basic science can be traced to the Dendral project in the 1960s. Having bioinformatics and clinical informatics in the same academic unit is still somewhat unusual and can lead to clashes of clinical and basic science cultures. Nevertheless, the benefits of this organization have recently become clear, as the landscape of academic medicine in the next decades has begun to emerge. The author provides examples of technology transfer between clinical informatics and bioinformatics that illustrate how they complement each other. PMID:10984462

Home - The Cancer Genome Atlas - Cancer Genome - TCGA

Cancer.gov

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a comprehensive and coordinated effort to accelerate our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer through the application of genome analysis technologies, including large-scale genome sequencing.

Phlebotomy and the Amish Inspired this Geneticist - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Dr. Stacey Gabriel began her career in genetics while working on a rare disease in the Amish. Learn more about her experience witnessing the human element of genetics in this TCGA in Action Researcher Profile.

TCGA researchers identify 4 subtypes of stomach cancer

Cancer.gov

Stomach cancers fall into four distinct molecular subtypes, researchers with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Network have found. Scientists report that this discovery could change how researchers think about developing treatments for stomach cancer, also c

TCGA study identifies genomic features of cervical cancer

Cancer.gov

Investigators with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have identified novel genomic and molecular characteristics of cervical cancer that will aid in subclassification of the disease and may help target therapies that are most appropriate for each patient.

TCGA bladder cancer study reveals potential drug targets

Cancer.gov

Investigators with TCGA have identified new potential therapeutic targets for a major form of bladder cancer, including important genes and pathways that are disrupted in the disease. They also discovered that, at the molecular level, some subtypes of bla

Studying the Genetic Basis of Kidney Cancer - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Dr. Marston Linehan, NCI's Chief of Urologic Surgery, has spent the last several decades studying kidney cancer genes and treating kidney cancer patients. Learn more about his experience as a kidney cancer physician scientist and TCGA contributor in this

On Informatics Diagnostics and Informatics Therapeutics - Good Medical Informatics Research Is Needed Here.

PubMed

Haux, Reinhold

2017-01-01

In the era of digitization some new procedures play an increasing role for diagnosis as well as for therapy: informatics diagnostics and informatics therapeutics. Challenges for such procedures are described. It is discussed, when research on such diagnostics and therapeutics can be regarded as good research. Examples are mentioned for informatics diagnostics and informatics therapeutics, which are based on health-enabling technologies.

Earth Science Informatics - Overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramapriyan, H. K.

2015-01-01

Over the last 10-15 years, significant advances have been made in information management, there are an increasing number of individuals entering the field of information management as it applies to Geoscience and Remote Sensing data, and the field of informatics has come to its own. Informatics is the science and technology of applying computers and computational methods to the systematic analysis, management, interchange, and representation of science data, information, and knowledge. Informatics also includes the use of computers and computational methods to support decision making and applications. Earth Science Informatics (ESI, a.k.a. geoinformatics) is the application of informatics in the Earth science domain. ESI is a rapidly developing discipline integrating computer science, information science, and Earth science. Major national and international research and infrastructure projects in ESI have been carried out or are on-going. Notable among these are: the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), the European Commissions INSPIRE, the U.S. NSDI and Geospatial One-Stop, the NASA EOSDIS, and the NSF DataONE, EarthCube and Cyberinfrastructure for Geoinformatics. More than 18 departments and agencies in the U.S. federal government have been active in Earth science informatics. All major space agencies in the world, have been involved in ESI research and application activities. In the United States, the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), whose membership includes nearly 150 organizations (government, academic and commercial) dedicated to managing, delivering and applying Earth science data, has been working on many ESI topics since 1998. The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS)s Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) has been actively coordinating the ESI activities among the space agencies. Remote Sensing; Earth Science Informatics, Data Systems; Data Services; Metadata

Towards an International Framework for Recommendations of Core Competencies in Nursing and Inter-Professional Informatics: The TIGER Competency Synthesis Project.

PubMed

Hübner, Ursula; Shaw, Toria; Thye, Johannes; Egbert, Nicole; Marin, Heimar; Ball, Marion

2016-01-01

Informatics competencies of the health care workforce must meet the requirements of inter-professional process and outcome oriented provision of care. In order to help nursing education transform accordingly, the TIGER Initiative deployed an international survey, with participation from 21 countries, to evaluate and prioritise a broad list of core competencies for nurses in five domains: 1) nursing management, 2) information technology (IT) management in nursing, 3) interprofessional coordination of care, 4) quality management, and 5) clinical nursing. Informatics core competencies were found highly important for all domains. In addition, this project compiled eight national cases studies from Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal, and Switzerland that reflected the country specific perspective. These findings will lead us to an international framework of informatics recommendations.

RAS - Target Identification - Informatics

Cancer.gov

The RAS Informatics lab group develops tools to track and analyze “big data” from the RAS Initiative, as well as analyzes data from external projects. By integrating internal and external data, this group helps improve understanding of RAS-driven cancers.

New study reveals relatively few mutations in AML genomes - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Investigators for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have detailed and broadly classified the genomic alterations that frequently underlie the development of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

New study program: Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Specialist Study in Medical Informatics.

PubMed

Hercigonja-Szekeres, Mira; Simić, Diana; Božikov, Jadranka; Vondra, Petra

2014-01-01

Paper presents an overview of the EU funded Project of Curriculum Development for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Specialist Study in Medical Informatics named MEDINFO to be introduced in Croatia. The target group for the program is formed by professionals in any of the areas of medicine, IT professionals working on applications of IT for health and researchers and teachers in medical informatics. In addition to Croatian students, the program will also provide opportunity for enrolling students from a wider region of Southeast Europe. Project partners are two faculties of the University of Zagreb - Faculty of Organization and Informatics from Varaždin and School of Medicine, Andrija Štampar School of Public Health from Zagreb with the Croatian Society for Medical Informatics, Croatian Chamber of Economy, and Ericsson Nikola Tesla Company as associates.

Earth Science Informatics - Overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramapriyan, H. K.

2017-01-01

Over the last 10-15 years, significant advances have been made in information management, there are an increasing number of individuals entering the field of information management as it applies to Geoscience and Remote Sensing data, and the field of informatics has come to its own. Informatics is the science and technology of applying computers and computational methods to the systematic analysis, management, interchange, and representation of science data, information, and knowledge. Informatics also includes the use of computers and computational methods to support decision making and applications. Earth Science Informatics (ESI, a.k.a. geoinformatics) is the application of informatics in the Earth science domain. ESI is a rapidly developing discipline integrating computer science, information science, and Earth science. Major national and international research and infrastructure projects in ESI have been carried out or are on-going. Notable among these are: the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), the European Commissions INSPIRE, the U.S. NSDI and Geospatial One-Stop, the NASA EOSDIS, and the NSF DataONE, EarthCube and Cyberinfrastructure for Geoinformatics. More than 18 departments and agencies in the U.S. federal government have been active in Earth science informatics. All major space agencies in the world, have been involved in ESI research and application activities. In the United States, the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), whose membership includes over 180 organizations (government, academic and commercial) dedicated to managing, delivering and applying Earth science data, has been working on many ESI topics since 1998. The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS)s Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) has been actively coordinating the ESI activities among the space agencies.

Continuous quality improvement and medical informatics: the convergent synergy.

PubMed

Werth, G R; Connelly, D P

1992-01-01

Continuous quality improvement (CQI) and medical informatics specialists need to converge their efforts to create synergy for improving health care. Health care CQI needs medical informatics' expertise and technology to build the information systems needed to manage health care organizations according to quality improvement principles. Medical informatics needs CQI's philosophy and methods to build health care information systems that can evolve to meet the changing needs of clinicians and other stakeholders. This paper explores the philosophical basis for convergence of CQI and medical informatics efforts, and then examines a clinical computer workstation development project that is applying a combined approach.

AACR 2010: Strategy for Mapping of 20 Cancers - TCGA

Cancer.gov

TCGA held an NCI-sponsored session at the American Association for Cancer Research's (AACR) 101st Annual Meeting 2010 to address the program’s Phase II structure and strategies for sample acquisition, evolving technologies, data management and analysis.

Brad Ozenberger, Ph.D., Presents the Achievements of The Cancer Genome Atlas During its Early Years - TCGA

Cancer.gov

Dr. Brad Ozenberger, former TCGA Program Director for the National Human Genome Research Institute, describes the goals and achievements of TCGA during its pilot phase, which involved the genomic characterization of brain, ovarian, and lung cancers.

Columbia University's Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel) Project

PubMed Central

Starren, Justin; Hripcsak, George; Sengupta, Soumitra; Abbruscato, C.R.; Knudson, Paul E.; Weinstock, Ruth S.; Shea, Steven

2002-01-01

The Columbia University Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine IDEATel) project is a four-year demonstration project funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the overall goal of evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of telemedicine. The focal point of the intervention is the home telemedicine unit (HTU), which provides four functions: synchronous videoconferencing over standard telephone lines, electronic transmission for fingerstick glucose and blood pressure readings, secure Web-based messaging and clinical data review, and access to Web-based educational materials. The HTU must be usable by elderly patients with no prior computer experience. Providing these functions through the HTU requires tight integration of six components: the HTU itself, case management software, a clinical information system, Web-based educational material, data security, and networking and telecommunications. These six components were integrated through a variety of interfaces, providing a system that works well for patients and providers. With more than 400 HTUs installed, IDEATel has demonstrated the feasibility of large-scale home telemedicine. PMID:11751801

Quantum Approach to Informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stenholm, Stig; Suominen, Kalle-Antti

2005-08-01

An essential overview of quantum information Information, whether inscribed as a mark on a stone tablet or encoded as a magnetic domain on a hard drive, must be stored in a physical object and thus made subject to the laws of physics. Traditionally, information processing such as computation occurred in a framework governed by laws of classical physics. However, information can also be stored and processed using the states of matter described by non-classical quantum theory. Understanding this quantum information, a fundamentally different type of information, has been a major project of physicists and information theorists in recent years, and recent experimental research has started to yield promising results. Quantum Approach to Informatics fills the need for a concise introduction to this burgeoning new field, offering an intuitive approach for readers in both the physics and information science communities, as well as in related fields. Only a basic background in quantum theory is required, and the text keeps the focus on bringing this theory to bear on contemporary informatics. Instead of proofs and other highly formal structures, detailed examples present the material, making this a uniquely accessible introduction to quantum informatics. Topics covered include: * An introduction to quantum information and the qubit * Concepts and methods of quantum theory important for informatics * The application of information concepts to quantum physics * Quantum information processing and computing * Quantum gates * Error correction using quantum-based methods * Physical realizations of quantum computing circuits A helpful and economical resource for understanding this exciting new application of quantum theory to informatics, Quantum Approach to Informatics provides students and researchers in physics and information science, as well as other interested readers with some scientific background, with an essential overview of the field.

Earth Science Informatics - Overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramapriyan, H. K.

2017-01-01

Over the last 10-15 years, significant advances have been made in information management, there are an increasing number of individuals entering the field of information management as it applies to Geoscience and Remote Sensing data, and the field of informatics has come to its own. Informatics is the science and technology of applying computers and computational methods to the systematic analysis, management, interchange, and representation of science data, information, and knowledge. Informatics also includes the use of computers and computational methods to support decision making and applications. Earth Science Informatics (ESI, a.k.a. geoinformatics) is the application of informatics in the Earth science domain. ESI is a rapidly developing discipline integrating computer science, information science, and Earth science. Major national and international research and infrastructure projects in ESI have been carried out or are on-going. Notable among these are: the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), the European Commissions INSPIRE, the U.S. NSDI and Geospatial One-Stop, the NASA EOSDIS, and the NSF DataONE, EarthCube and Cyberinfrastructure for Geoinformatics. More than 18 departments and agencies in the U.S. federal government have been active in Earth science informatics. All major space agencies in the world, have been involved in ESI research and application activities. In the United States, the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), whose membership includes over 180 organizations (government, academic and commercial) dedicated to managing, delivering and applying Earth science data, has been working on many ESI topics since 1998. The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS)s Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) has been actively coordinating the ESI activities among the space agencies.The talk will present an overview of current efforts in ESI, the role members of IEEE GRSS play, and discuss

The fusion of gerontology and technology in nursing education: History and demonstration of the Gerontological Informatics Reasoning Project--GRIP.

PubMed

Dreher, H Michael; Cornelius, Fran; Draper, Judy; Pitkar, Harshad; Manco, Janet; Song, Il-Yeol

2006-01-01

Phase I of our Gerontological Reasoning Informatics Project (GRIP) began in the summer of 2002 when all 37 senior undergraduate nursing students in our accelerated BSN nursing program were given PDAs. These students were oriented to use a digitalized geriatric nursing assessment tool embedded into their PDA in a variety of geriatric clinical agencies. This informatics project was developed to make geriatric nursing more technology oriented and focused on seven modules of geriatric assessment: intellect (I), nutrition (N), self-concept (S), physical activity (P), interpersonal functioning (I), restful sleep (R), and elimination (E)--INSPIRE. Through phase II and now phase III, the GRIP Project has become a major collaboration between the College of Nursing & Health Professions and College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University. The digitalized geriatric nursing health assessment tool has undergone a second round of reliability and validity testing and is now used to conduct a 20 minute comprehensive geriatric health assessment on the PDA, making our undergraduate gerontology course the most high tech clinical course in our nursing curriculum.

Infusing informatics into interprofessional education: the iTEAM (Interprofessional Technology Enhanced Advanced practice Model) project.

PubMed

Skiba, Diane J; Barton, Amy J; Knapfel, Sarah; Moore, Gina; Trinkley, Katy

2014-01-01

The iTEAM goal is to prepare advanced practice nurses, physicians and pharmacists with the interprofessional (IP) core competencies (informatics, patient centric, quality-focused, evidence based care) to provide technology enhanced collaborative care by: offering technology enhanced learning opportunities through a required informatics course, advanced practice courses (team based experiences with both standardized and virtual patients) and team based clinical experiences including e-health experiences. The innovative features of iTEAM project will be achieved through use of social media strategies, a web accessible Electronic Health Records (EHRs) system, a Virtual Clinic/Hospital in Second Life, various e-health applications including traditional telehealth tools and consumer oriented tools such as patient portals, social media consumer groups and mobile health (m-health) applications for health and wellness functions. It builds upon the schools' rich history of IP education and includes clinical partners, such as the VA and other clinical sites focused on care for underserved patient populations.

Pan-cancer analysis reveals technical artifacts in TCGA germline variant calls.

PubMed

Buckley, Alexandra R; Standish, Kristopher A; Bhutani, Kunal; Ideker, Trey; Lasken, Roger S; Carter, Hannah; Harismendy, Olivier; Schork, Nicholas J

2017-06-12

Cancer research to date has largely focused on somatically acquired genetic aberrations. In contrast, the degree to which germline, or inherited, variation contributes to tumorigenesis remains unclear, possibly due to a lack of accessible germline variant data. Here we called germline variants on 9618 cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database representing 31 cancer types. We identified batch effects affecting loss of function (LOF) variant calls that can be traced back to differences in the way the sequence data were generated both within and across cancer types. Overall, LOF indel calls were more sensitive to technical artifacts than LOF Single Nucleotide Variant (SNV) calls. In particular, whole genome amplification of DNA prior to sequencing led to an artificially increased burden of LOF indel calls, which confounded association analyses relating germline variants to tumor type despite stringent indel filtering strategies. The samples affected by these technical artifacts include all acute myeloid leukemia and practically all ovarian cancer samples. We demonstrate how technical artifacts induced by whole genome amplification of DNA can lead to false positive germline-tumor type associations and suggest TCGA whole genome amplified samples be used with caution. This study draws attention to the need to be sensitive to problems associated with a lack of uniformity in data generation in TCGA data.

Health system informatics.

PubMed

Felkey, B G

1997-02-01

The application of informatics in a health system in general and to pharmacy in particular is discussed. Informatics is the use of information technology to enhance the quality of care, facilitate accountability, and assist in cost containment. Tying the pieces of health care into a seamless system using informatics principles yields a more rational approach to caregiving. A four-layer hierarchy of information systems can be found in any health system: layer 1, the foundational layer formed by a transaction-processing system; 2, the management information system; 3, decision support; and 4, advanced informatics applications such as expert systems. Other industries appear to be ahead of health care in investing in informatics applications. Pharmacy is one of the key health care professions that must adopt informatics. A stepwise structure for pharmacy informatics has been proposed; it consists of establishing a relationship with the patient, establishing a database, listing and ranking problems, choosing among alternatives, and planning and monitoring. Informatics should be approached by determining where the department is going strategically. Informatics standards will be needed. Pharmacists will need to use informatics to enhance their worth on the health care team and to improve patient care.

An innovative capstone health care informatics clinical residency: Interprofessional team collaboration.

PubMed

Custis, Laura M; Hawkins, Shelley Y; Thomason, Tanna R

2017-03-01

Integrated information systems and wireless technology have been increasingly incorporated into health care organizations with the premise that information technology will promote safe, high-quality, cost-effective patient care. With the advancement of technology, the level of expertise necessary to assume health care information technology roles has escalated. The purpose of this article is to describe a clinical residency project whereby students in a graduate degree health care informatics program successfully fulfilled program competencies through a faculty-lead research project focused on the use of home telehealth with a group of heart failure patients. Through the use of Donabedian's framework of structure, process, and outcomes, the health care informatics students completed essential learning activities deemed essential for transition into the role of an informatics specialist. Health care informatics educational leaders are encouraged to adapt this template of applied learning into their practices.

TCGA researchers identify potential drug targets, markers for leukemia risk

Cancer.gov

Investigators for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have detailed and broadly classified the genomic alterations that frequently underlie the development of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a deadly cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Their wo

The State of Information and Communication Technology and Health Informatics in Ghana

PubMed Central

Achampong, Emmanuel Kusi

2012-01-01

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a major tool in delivery of health services and has had an innovative impact on quality of life. ICT is affecting the way healthcare is delivered to clients. In this paper, we discuss the state of ICT and health informatics in Ghana. We also discuss the state of various relevant infrastructures for the successful implementation of ehealth projects. We analyse the past and present state of health informatics in Ghana, in comparison to other African countries. We also review the challenges facing successful implementation of health informatics projects in Ghana and suggest possible solutions. PMID:23569633

Developing Informatics Tools and Strategies for Consumer-centered Health Communication

PubMed Central

Keselman, Alla; Logan, Robert; Smith, Catherine Arnott; Leroy, Gondy; Zeng-Treitler, Qing

2008-01-01

As the emphasis on individuals' active partnership in health care grows, so does the public's need for effective, comprehensible consumer health resources. Consumer health informatics has the potential to provide frameworks and strategies for designing effective health communication tools that empower users and improve their health decisions. This article presents an overview of the consumer health informatics field, discusses promising approaches to supporting health communication, and identifies challenges plus direction for future research and development. The authors' recommendations emphasize the need for drawing upon communication and social science theories of information behavior, reaching out to consumers via a range of traditional and novel formats, gaining better understanding of the public's health information needs, and developing informatics solutions for tailoring resources to users' needs and competencies. This article was written as a scholarly outreach and leadership project by members of the American Medical Informatics Association's Consumer Health Informatics Working Group. PMID:18436895

Developing a Capstone Course within a Health Informatics Program

PubMed Central

Hackbarth, Gary; Cata, Teuta; Cole, Laura

2012-01-01

This article discusses the ongoing development of a health informatics capstone program in a Midwest university from the hiring of a program coordinator to the development of a capstone course, through initial student results. University health informatics programs require a strong academic program to be successful but also require a spirited program coordinator to manage resources and organize an effective capstone course. This is particularly true of health informatics master's programs that support health industry career fields, whereby employers can locate and work with a pool of qualified applicants. The analysis of students’ logs confirms that students’ areas of focus and concern are consistent with course objectives and company work requirements during the work-study portion of the student capstone project. The article further discusses lessons learned and future improvements to be made in the health informatics capstone course. PMID:22783150

An informatics project and online "Knowledge Centre" supporting modern genotype-to-phenotype research.

PubMed

Webb, Adam J; Thorisson, Gudmundur A; Brookes, Anthony J

2011-05-01

Explosive growth in the generation of genotype-to-phenotype (G2P) data necessitates a concerted effort to tackle the logistical and informatics challenges this presents. The GEN2PHEN Project represents one such effort, with a broad strategy of uniting disparate G2P resources into a hybrid centralized-federated network. This is achieved through a holistic strategy focussed on three overlapping areas: data input standards and pipelines through which to submit and collect data (data in); federated, independent, extendable, yet interoperable database platforms on which to store and curate widely diverse datasets (data storage); and data formats and mechanisms with which to exchange, combine, and extract data (data exchange and output). To fully leverage this data network, we have constructed the "G2P Knowledge Centre" (http://www.gen2phen.org). This central platform provides holistic searching of the G2P data domain allied with facilities for data annotation and user feedback, access to extensive G2P and informatics resources, and tools for constructing online working communities centered on the G2P domain. Through the efforts of GEN2PHEN, and through combining data with broader community-derived knowledge, the Knowledge Centre opens up exciting possibilities for organizing, integrating, sharing, and interpreting new waves of G2P data in a collaborative fashion. © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Translational informatics: an industry perspective.

PubMed

Cantor, Michael N

2012-01-01

Translational informatics (TI) is extremely important for the pharmaceutical industry, especially as the bar for regulatory approval of new medications is set higher and higher. This paper will explore three specific areas in the drug development lifecycle, from tools developed by precompetitive consortia to standardized clinical data collection to the effective delivery of medications using clinical decision support, in which TI has a major role to play. Advancing TI will require investment in new tools and algorithms, as well as ensuring that translational issues are addressed early in the design process of informatics projects, and also given higher weight in funding or publication decisions. Ultimately, the source of translational tools and differences between academia and industry are secondary, as long as they move towards the shared goal of improving health.

Education review: applied medical informatics--informatics in medical education.

PubMed

Naeymi-Rad, F; Trace, D; Moidu, K; Carmony, L; Booden, T

1994-05-01

The importance of informatics training within a health sciences program is well recognized and is being implemented on an increasing scale. At Chicago Medical School (CMS), the Informatics program incorporates information technology at every stage of medical education. First-year students are offered an elective in computer topics that concentrate on basic computer literacy. Second-year students learn information management such as entry and information retrieval skills. For example, during the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course, the student is exposed to the Intelligent Medical Record-Entry (IMR-E), allowing the student to enter and organize information gathered from patient encounters. In the third year, students in the Internal Medicine rotation at Norwalk Hospital use Macintosh power books to enter and manage their patients. Patient data gathered by the student are stored in a local server in Norwalk Hospital. In the final year, we teach students the role of informatics in clinical decision making. The present senior class at CMS has been exposed to the power of medical informatics tools for several years. The use of these informatics tools at the point of care is stressed.

Biomedical informatics and the convergence of Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno (NBIC) technologies.

PubMed

Martin-Sanchez, F; Maojo, V

2009-01-01

To analyze the role that biomedical informatics could play in the application of the NBIC Converging Technologies in the medical field and raise awareness of these new areas throughout the Biomedical Informatics community. Review of the literature and analysis of the reference documents in this domain from the biomedical informatics perspective. Detailing existing developments showing that partial convergence of technologies have already yielded relevant results in biomedicine (such as bioinformatics or biochips). Input from current projects in which the authors are involved is also used. Information processing is a key issue in enabling the convergence of NBIC technologies. Researchers in biomedical informatics are in a privileged position to participate and actively develop this new scientific direction. The experience of biomedical informaticians in five decades of research in the medical area and their involvement in the completion of the Human and other genome projects will help them participate in a similar role for the development of applications of converging technologies -particularly in nanomedicine. The proposed convergence will bring bridges between traditional disciplines. Particular attention should be placed on the ethical, legal, and social issues raised by the NBIC convergence. These technologies provide new directions for research and education in Biomedical Informatics placing a greater emphasis in multidisciplinary approaches.

Clinical Microbiology Informatics

PubMed Central

Sintchenko, Vitali; Rauch, Carol A.; Pantanowitz, Liron

2014-01-01

SUMMARY The clinical microbiology laboratory has responsibilities ranging from characterizing the causative agent in a patient's infection to helping detect global disease outbreaks. All of these processes are increasingly becoming partnered more intimately with informatics. Effective application of informatics tools can increase the accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of microbiology testing while decreasing the laboratory workload, which can lead to optimized laboratory workflow and decreased costs. Informatics is poised to be increasingly relevant in clinical microbiology, with the advent of total laboratory automation, complex instrument interfaces, electronic health records, clinical decision support tools, and the clinical implementation of microbial genome sequencing. This review discusses the diverse informatics aspects that are relevant to the clinical microbiology laboratory, including the following: the microbiology laboratory information system, decision support tools, expert systems, instrument interfaces, total laboratory automation, telemicrobiology, automated image analysis, nucleic acid sequence databases, electronic reporting of infectious agents to public health agencies, and disease outbreak surveillance. The breadth and utility of informatics tools used in clinical microbiology have made them indispensable to contemporary clinical and laboratory practice. Continued advances in technology and development of these informatics tools will further improve patient and public health care in the future. PMID:25278581

A Multidisciplinary PBL Approach for Teaching Industrial Informatics and Robotics in Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Calvo, Isidro; Cabanes, Itziar; Quesada, Jeronimo; Barambones, Oscar

2018-01-01

This paper describes the design of an industrial informatics course, following the project-based learning methodology, and reports the experience of four academic years (from 2012-13 to 2015-16). Industrial Informatics is a compulsory course taught in the third year of the B.Sc. degree in industrial electronics and automation engineering at the…

Informatics for Peru in the new millennium.

PubMed

Karras, B T; Kimball, A M; Gonzales, V; Pautler, N A; Alarcón, J; Garcia, P J; Fuller, S

2001-01-01

As efforts continue to narrow the digital divide between the North and South, a new biomedical and health informatics training effort has been launched in Peru. This report describes the first year of work on this collaborative effort between the University of Washington (Seattle) Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia and Universidad Nacional de San Marcos (Peru) To describe activities in the first year of a new International Research and Training Program in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Descriptive analysis of key activities including an assessment of electronic environment through observation and survey, an in country short course with quantitative evaluation, and first round of recruitment of Peruvian scholars for long-term training in Seattle. A two-week short course on informatics was held in the country. Participants' success in learning was demonstrated through pretest/posttest. A systematic assessment of electronic environment in Peru was carried out and two scholars for long-term training were enrolled at the University of Washington, Seattle. Initial activity in the collaborative training effort has been high. Of particular importance in this environment is orchestration of efforts among interested parties with similar goals in Peru, and integration of informatics skills into ongoing large-scale research projects in country.

Clinical microbiology informatics.

PubMed

Rhoads, Daniel D; Sintchenko, Vitali; Rauch, Carol A; Pantanowitz, Liron

2014-10-01

The clinical microbiology laboratory has responsibilities ranging from characterizing the causative agent in a patient's infection to helping detect global disease outbreaks. All of these processes are increasingly becoming partnered more intimately with informatics. Effective application of informatics tools can increase the accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of microbiology testing while decreasing the laboratory workload, which can lead to optimized laboratory workflow and decreased costs. Informatics is poised to be increasingly relevant in clinical microbiology, with the advent of total laboratory automation, complex instrument interfaces, electronic health records, clinical decision support tools, and the clinical implementation of microbial genome sequencing. This review discusses the diverse informatics aspects that are relevant to the clinical microbiology laboratory, including the following: the microbiology laboratory information system, decision support tools, expert systems, instrument interfaces, total laboratory automation, telemicrobiology, automated image analysis, nucleic acid sequence databases, electronic reporting of infectious agents to public health agencies, and disease outbreak surveillance. The breadth and utility of informatics tools used in clinical microbiology have made them indispensable to contemporary clinical and laboratory practice. Continued advances in technology and development of these informatics tools will further improve patient and public health care in the future. Copyright © 2014, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Health Professionals' Views of Informatics Education

PubMed Central

Staggers, Nancy; Gassert, Carole A.; Skiba, Diane J.

2000-01-01

Health care leaders emphasize the need to include information technology and informatics concepts in formal education programs, yet integration of informatics into health educational programs has progressed slowly. The AMIA 1999 Spring Congress was held to address informatics educational issues across health professions, including the educational needs in the various health professions, goals for health informatics education, and implementation strategies to achieve these goals. This paper presents the results from AMIA work groups focused on informatics education for non-informatics health professionals. In the categories of informatics needs, goals, and strategies, conference attendees suggested elements in these areas: educational responsibilities for faculty and students, organizational responsibilities, core computer skills and informatics knowledge, how to learn informatics skills, and resources required to implement educational strategies. PMID:11062228

Time for TIGER to ROAR! Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform.

PubMed

O'Connor, Siobhan; Hubner, Ursula; Shaw, Toria; Blake, Rachelle; Ball, Marion

2017-11-01

Information Technology (IT) continues to evolve and develop with electronic devices and systems becoming integral to healthcare in every country. This has led to an urgent need for all professions working in healthcare to be knowledgeable and skilled in informatics. The Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) Initiative was established in 2006 in the United States to develop key areas of informatics in nursing. One of these was to integrate informatics competencies into nursing curricula and life-long learning. In 2009, TIGER developed an informatics competency framework which outlines numerous IT competencies required for professional practice and this work helped increase the emphasis of informatics in nursing education standards in the United States. In 2012, TIGER expanded to the international community to help synthesise informatics competencies for nurses and pool educational resources in health IT. This transition led to a new interprofessional, interdisciplinary approach, as health informatics education needs to expand to other clinical fields and beyond. In tandem, a European Union (EU) - United States (US) Collaboration on eHealth began a strand of work which focuses on developing the IT skills of the health workforce to ensure technology can be adopted and applied in healthcare. One initiative within this is the EU*US eHealth Work Project, which started in 2016 and is mapping the current structure and gaps in health IT skills and training needs globally. It aims to increase educational opportunities by developing a model for open and scalable access to eHealth training programmes. With this renewed initiative to incorporate informatics into the education and training of nurses and other health professionals globally, it is time for educators, researchers, practitioners and policy makers to join in and ROAR with TIGER. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Moving toward a United States strategic plan in primary care informatics: a White Paper of the Primary Care Informatics Working Group, American Medical Informatics Association.

PubMed

Little, David R; Zapp, John A; Mullins, Henry C; Zuckerman, Alan E; Teasdale, Sheila; Johnson, Kevin B

2003-01-01

The Primary Care Informatics Working Group (PCIWG) of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has identified the absence of a national strategy for primary care informatics. Under PCIWG leadership, major national and international societies have come together to create the National Alliance for Primary Care Informatics (NAPCI), to promote a connection between the informatics community and the organisations that support primary care. The PCIWG clinical practice subcommittee has recognised the necessity of a global needs assessment, and proposed work in point-of-care technology, clinical vocabularies, and ambulatory electronic medical record development. Educational needs include a consensus statement on informatics competencies, recommendations for curriculum and teaching methods, and methodologies to evaluate their effectiveness. The research subcommittee seeks to define a primary care informatics research agenda, and to support and disseminate informatics research throughout the primary care community. The AMIA board of directors has enthusiastically endorsed the conceptual basis for this White Paper.

Biomedical informatics and translational medicine.

PubMed

Sarkar, Indra Neil

2010-02-26

Biomedical informatics involves a core set of methodologies that can provide a foundation for crossing the "translational barriers" associated with translational medicine. To this end, the fundamental aspects of biomedical informatics (e.g., bioinformatics, imaging informatics, clinical informatics, and public health informatics) may be essential in helping improve the ability to bring basic research findings to the bedside, evaluate the efficacy of interventions across communities, and enable the assessment of the eventual impact of translational medicine innovations on health policies. Here, a brief description is provided for a selection of key biomedical informatics topics (Decision Support, Natural Language Processing, Standards, Information Retrieval, and Electronic Health Records) and their relevance to translational medicine. Based on contributions and advancements in each of these topic areas, the article proposes that biomedical informatics practitioners ("biomedical informaticians") can be essential members of translational medicine teams.

Clinical informatics in undergraduate teaching of health informatics.

PubMed

Pantazi, Stefan V; Pantazi, Felicia; Daly, Karen

2011-01-01

We are reporting on a recent experience with Health Informatics (HI) teaching at undergraduate degree level to an audience of HI and Pharmacy students. The important insight is that effective teaching of clinical informatics must involve highly interactive, applied components in addition to the traditional theoretical material. This is in agreement with general literature underlining the importance of simulations and role playing in teaching and is well supported by our student evaluation results. However, the viability and sustainability of such approaches to teaching hinges on significant course preparation efforts. These efforts consist of time-consuming investigations of informatics technologies, applications and systems followed by the implementation of workable solutions to a wide range of technical problems. In effect, this approach to course development is an involved process that relies on a special form of applied research whose technical complexity could explain the dearth of published reports on similar approaches in HI education. Despite its difficulties, we argue that this approach can be used to set a baseline for clinical informatics training at undergraduate level and that its implications for HI education in Canada are of importance.

The European community and its standardization efforts in medical informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mattheus, Rudy A.

1992-07-01

A summary of the CEN TC 251/4 ''Medical Imaging and Multi-Media'' activities will be given. CEN is the European standardization institute, TC 251 deals with medical informatics. Standardization is a condition for the wide scale use of health care and medical informatics and for the creation of a common market. In the last two years, three important categories-- namely, the Commission of the European Communities with their programs and the mandates, the medical informaticians through their European professional federation, and the national normalization institutes through the European committee--have shown to be aware of this problem and have taken actions. As a result, a number of AIM (Advanced Informatics in Medicine), CEC sponsored projects, the CEC mandates to CEN and EWOS, the EFMI working group on standardization, the technical committee of CEN, and the working groups and project teams of CEN and EWOS are working on the subject. On overview of the CEN TC 251/4 ''Medical Imaging and Multi-Media'' activities will be given, including their relation to other work.

Multi-Sensory Informatics Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Katai, Zoltan; Toth, Laszlo; Adorjani, Alpar Karoly

2014-01-01

A recent report by the joint Informatics Europe & ACM Europe Working Group on Informatics Education emphasizes that: (1) computational thinking is an important ability that all people should possess; (2) informatics-based concepts, abilities and skills are teachable, and must be included in the primary and particularly in the secondary school…

Serum-based six-miRNA signature as a potential marker for EC diagnosis: Comparison with TCGA miRNAseq dataset and identification of miRNA-mRNA target pairs by integrated analysis of TCGA miRNAseq and RNAseq datasets.

PubMed

Sharma, Priyanka; Saraya, Anoop; Sharma, Rinu

2018-01-30

To evaluate the diagnostic potential of a six microRNAs (miRNAs) panel consisting of miR-21, miR-144, miR-107, miR-342, miR-93 and miR-152 for esophageal cancer (EC) detection. The expression of miRNAs was analyzed in EC sera samples using quantitative real-time PCR. Risk score analysis was performed and linear regression models were then fitted to generate the six-miRNA panel. In addition, we made an effort to identify significantly dysregulated miRNAs and mRNAs in EC using the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) miRNAseq and RNAseq datasets, respectively. Further, we identified significantly correlated miRNA-mRNA target pairs by integrating TCGA EC miRNAseq dataset with RNAseq dataset. The panel of circulating miRNAs showed enhanced sensitivity (87.5%) and specificity (90.48%) in terms of discriminating EC patients from normal subjects (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.968). Pathway enrichment analysis for potential targets of six miRNAs revealed 48 significant (P < 0.05) pathways, viz. pathways in cancer, mRNA surveillance, MAPK, Wnt, mTOR signaling, and so on. The expression data for mRNAs and miRNAs, downloaded from TCGA database, lead to identification of 2309 differentially expressed genes and 189 miRNAs. Gene ontology and pathway enrichment analysis showed that cell-cycle processes were most significantly enriched for differentially expressed mRNA. Integrated analysis of TCGA miRNAseq and RNAseq datasets resulted in identification of 53 063 significantly and negatively correlated miRNA-mRNA pairs. In summary, a novel and highly sensitive signature of serum miRNAs was identified for EC detection. Moreover, this is the first report identifying miRNA-mRNA target pairs from EC TCGA dataset, thus providing a comprehensive resource for understanding the interactions existing between miRNA and their target mRNAs in EC. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Informatics Moments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Kate

2012-01-01

The informatics moment is the moment when a person seeks help in using some digital technology that is new to him or her. This article examines the informatics moment in people's everyday lives as they sought help at a branch public library. Four types of literacy were involved: basic literacy (reading and writing), computer literacy (use of a…

What is biomedical informatics?

PubMed Central

Bernstam, Elmer V.; Smith, Jack W.; Johnson, Todd R.

2009-01-01

Biomedical informatics lacks a clear and theoretically grounded definition. Many proposed definitions focus on data, information, and knowledge, but do not provide an adequate definition of these terms. Leveraging insights from the philosophy of information, we define informatics as the science of information, where information is data plus meaning. Biomedical informatics is the science of information as applied to or studied in the context of biomedicine. Defining the object of study of informatics as data plus meaning clearly distinguishes the field from related fields, such as computer science, statistics and biomedicine, which have different objects of study. The emphasis on data plus meaning also suggests that biomedical informatics problems tend to be difficult when they deal with concepts that are hard to capture using formal, computational definitions. In other words, problems where meaning must be considered are more difficult than problems where manipulating data without regard for meaning is sufficient. Furthermore, the definition implies that informatics research, teaching, and service should focus on biomedical information as data plus meaning rather than only computer applications in biomedicine. PMID:19683067

Patient Centred Systems: Techno-Anthropological reflections on the challenges of 'meaningfully engaging' patients within health informatics research.

PubMed

Wong, Ming-Chao; Almond, Helen; Cummings, Elizabeth; Roehrer, Erin; Showell, Chris; Turner, Paul

2015-01-01

This chapter explores how Techno-Anthropology can contribute to more explicitly professional and ethically responsible reflections on the socio-technical practices involved in meaningfully engaging patients in health informatics research. The chapter draws on insights from health informatics research projects focused on chronic disease and self-management conducted in Tasmania during the last 10 years. Through these projects the paper explores three topics of relevance to 'meaningful engagement' with patients: (i) Patient Self-Management and Chronic Disease (ii) Patients as Users in Health Informatics research, and, (iii) Evaluations of outcomes in Health and Health Informatics Interventions. Techno-Anthropological reflections are then discussed through the concepts of liminality, polyphony and power. This chapter argues that beyond its contribution to methodology, an important role for Techno-Anthropology in patient centred health informatics research may be its capacity to support new ways of conceptualising and critically reflecting on the construction and mediation of patients' needs, values and perspectives.

Publication trends in the medical informatics literature: 20 years of "Medical Informatics" in MeSH

PubMed Central

2009-01-01

Background The purpose of this study is to identify publication output, and research areas, as well as descriptively and quantitatively characterize the field of medical informatics through publication trend analysis over a twenty year period (1987–2006). Methods A bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in Medline was performed using publication trends, journal frequency, impact factors, MeSH term frequencies and characteristics of citations. Results There were 77,023 medical informatics articles published during this 20 year period in 4,644 unique journals. The average annual article publication growth rate was 12%. The 50 identified medical informatics MeSH terms are rarely assigned together to the same document and are almost exclusively paired with a non-medical informatics MeSH term, suggesting a strong interdisciplinary trend. Trends in citations, journals, and MeSH categories of medical informatics output for the 20-year period are summarized. Average impact factor scores and weighted average impact factor scores increased over the 20-year period with two notable growth periods. Conclusion There is a steadily growing presence and increasing visibility of medical informatics literature over the years. Patterns in research output that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline, and highlight specific journals in which the medical informatics literature appears most frequently, including general medical journals as well as informatics-specific journals. PMID:19159472

B-CAN: a resource sharing platform to improve the operation, visualization and integrated analysis of TCGA breast cancer data.

PubMed

Wen, Can-Hong; Ou, Shao-Min; Guo, Xiao-Bo; Liu, Chen-Feng; Shen, Yan-Bo; You, Na; Cai, Wei-Hong; Shen, Wen-Jun; Wang, Xue-Qin; Tan, Hai-Zhu

2017-12-12

Breast cancer is a high-risk heterogeneous disease with myriad subtypes and complicated biological features. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) breast cancer database provides researchers with the large-scale genome and clinical data via web portals and FTP services. Researchers are able to gain new insights into their related fields, and evaluate experimental discoveries with TCGA. However, it is difficult for researchers who have little experience with database and bioinformatics to access and operate on because of TCGA's complex data format and diverse files. For ease of use, we build the breast cancer (B-CAN) platform, which enables data customization, data visualization, and private data center. The B-CAN platform runs on Apache server and interacts with the backstage of MySQL database by PHP. Users can customize data based on their needs by combining tables from original TCGA database and selecting variables from each table. The private data center is applicable for private data and two types of customized data. A key feature of the B-CAN is that it provides single table display and multiple table display. Customized data with one barcode corresponding to many records and processed customized data are allowed in Multiple Tables Display. The B-CAN is an intuitive and high-efficient data-sharing platform.

The internal challenges of medical informatics.

PubMed

Gell, G

1997-03-01

Haux's [7] basic assumption that the object of medical informatics is: "... to assure and to improve the quality of healthcare as well as the quality of research and education in medicine and in the health sciences ..." is taken as a starting point to discuss the three main topics: What is the meaning of medical informatics (i.e. what should be the main activities of medical informatics to bring maximum benefit to medicine)? What are the achievements and failures of medical informatics today (again considering the impact on the quality of healthcare)? What are the main challenges? Concerning the definition of medical informatics it is argued that one should not hide the link to basic informatics and, for that matter to computers, completely behind abstract definitions. After an analysis of the purposes of the definition of a discipline, a differentiated definition of the scope of medical informatics, rather general when concerning the field of scientific interest, more focused when concerning the practical (constructive) applications, is proposed. Contrasting Haux's chapter on achievements of medical informatics we concentrate on and analyse non fulfilled promises of medical informatics to derive lessons for the future and to propose 'generic' (or core) tasks of medical informatics to meet the challenges of the future. A set of 'internal challenges' of medical informatics to change priorities and attitudes within the discipline is put forward to enable medical informatics to meet the 'external challenges' listed by Haux.

TU-F-BRD-01: Biomedical Informatics for Medical Physicists

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Phillips, M; Kalet, I; McNutt, T

Biomedical informatics encompasses a very large domain of knowledge and applications. This broad and loosely defined field can make it difficult to navigate. Physicists often are called upon to provide informatics services and/or to take part in projects involving principles of the field. The purpose of the presentations in this symposium is to help medical physicists gain some knowledge about the breadth of the field and how, in the current clinical and research environment, they can participate and contribute. Three talks have been designed to give an overview from the perspective of physicists and to provide a more in-depth discussionmore » in two areas. One of the primary purposes, and the main subject of the first talk, is to help physicists achieve a perspective about the range of the topics and concepts that fall under the heading of 'informatics'. The approach is to de-mystify topics and jargon and to help physicists find resources in the field should they need them. The other talks explore two areas of biomedical informatics in more depth. The goal is to highlight two domains of intense current interest--databases and models--in enough depth into current approaches so that an adequate background for independent inquiry is achieved. These two areas will serve as good examples of how physicists, using informatics principles, can contribute to oncology practice and research. Learning Objectives: To understand how the principles of biomedical informatics are used by medical physicists. To put the relevant informatics concepts in perspective with regard to biomedicine in general. To use clinical database design as an example of biomedical informatics. To provide a solid background into the problems and issues of the design and use of data and databases in radiation oncology. To use modeling in the service of decision support systems as an example of modeling methods and data use. To provide a background into how uncertainty in our data and knowledge can be

Advancing Climate Change and Impacts Science Through Climate Informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lenhardt, W.; Pouchard, L. C.; King, A. W.; Branstetter, M. L.; Kao, S.; Wang, D.

2010-12-01

This poster will outline the work to date on developing a climate informatics capability at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The central proposition of this effort is that the application of informatics and information science to the domain of climate change science is an essential means to bridge the realm of high performance computing (HPC) and domain science. The goal is to facilitate knowledge capture and the creation of new scientific insights. For example, a climate informatics capability will help with the understanding and use of model results in domain sciences that were not originally in the scope. From there, HPC can also benefit from feedback as the new approaches may lead to better parameterization in the models. In this poster we will summarize the challenges associated with climate change science that can benefit from the systematic application of informatics and we will highlight our work to date in creating the climate informatics capability to address these types of challenges. We have identified three areas that are particularly challenging in the context of climate change science: 1) integrating model and observational data across different spatial and temporal scales, 2) model linkages, i.e. climate models linked to other models such as hydrologic models, and 3) model diagnostics. Each of these has a methodological component and an informatics component. Our project under way at ORNL seeks to develop new approaches and tools in the context of linking climate change and water issues. We are basing our work on the following four use cases: 1) Evaluation/test of CCSM4 biases in hydrology (precipitation, soil water, runoff, river discharge) over the Rio Grande Basin. User: climate modeler. 2) Investigation of projected changes in hydrology of Rio Grande Basin using the VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity Macroscale) Hydrologic Model. User: watershed hydrologist/modeler. 3) Impact of climate change on agricultural productivity of the Rio Grande

Project-based teaching in health informatics: a course on health care quality improvement.

PubMed

Moehr, J R; Berenji, G R; Green, C J; Kagolovsky, Y

2001-01-01

Teaching the skills and knowledge required in health informatics [1] is a challenge because the skill of applying knowledge in real life requires practice. We relate the experience with introducing a practice component to a course in "Health Care Quality Improvement". Working health care professionals were invited to bring an actual quality problem from their place of work and to work alongside students in running the problem through a quality improvement project lifecycle. Multiple technological and process oriented teaching innovations were employed including project sessions in observation rooms, video recording of these sessions, generation of demonstration examples and distance education components. Both students and their collaborators from the work place developed proficiency in applying quality improvement methods as well as in experiencing the realities of group processes, information gaps and organizational constraints. The principles used to achieve high involvement of the whole class, the employed resources and technical support are described. The resulting academic and practical achievements are discussed in relation to the alternative instructional modalities, and with respect to didactic implications for similar endeavors and beyond to other fields such as systems engineering.

The Informatics Opportunities at the Intersection of Patient Safety and Clinical Informatics

PubMed Central

Kilbridge, Peter M.; Classen, David C.

2008-01-01

Health care providers have a basic responsibility to protect patients from accidental harm. At the institutional level, creating safe health care organizations necessitates a systematic approach. Effective use of informatics to enhance safety requires the establishment and use of standards for concept definitions and for data exchange, development of acceptable models for knowledge representation, incentives for adoption of electronic health records, support for adverse event detection and reporting, and greater investment in research at the intersection of informatics and patient safety. Leading organizations have demonstrated that health care informatics approaches can improve safety. Nevertheless, significant obstacles today limit optimal application of health informatics to safety within most provider environments. The authors offer a series of recommendations for addressing these challenges. PMID:18436896

Pathology Informatics Essentials for Residents: A Flexible Informatics Curriculum Linked to Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Milestones.

PubMed

Henricks, Walter H; Karcher, Donald S; Harrison, James H; Sinard, John H; Riben, Michael W; Boyer, Philip J; Plath, Sue; Thompson, Arlene; Pantanowitz, Liron

2017-01-01

-Recognition of the importance of informatics to the practice of pathology has surged. Training residents in pathology informatics has been a daunting task for most residency programs in the United States because faculty often lacks experience and training resources. Nevertheless, developing resident competence in informatics is essential for the future of pathology as a specialty. -To develop and deliver a pathology informatics curriculum and instructional framework that guides pathology residency programs in training residents in critical pathology informatics knowledge and skills, and meets Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Informatics Milestones. -The College of American Pathologists, Association of Pathology Chairs, and Association for Pathology Informatics formed a partnership and expert work group to identify critical pathology informatics training outcomes and to create a highly adaptable curriculum and instructional approach, supported by a multiyear change management strategy. -Pathology Informatics Essentials for Residents (PIER) is a rigorous approach for educating all pathology residents in important pathology informatics knowledge and skills. PIER includes an instructional resource guide and toolkit for incorporating informatics training into residency programs that vary in needs, size, settings, and resources. PIER is available at http://www.apcprods.org/PIER (accessed April 6, 2016). -PIER is an important contribution to informatics training in pathology residency programs. PIER introduces pathology trainees to broadly useful informatics concepts and tools that are relevant to practice. PIER provides residency program directors with a means to implement a standardized informatics training curriculum, to adapt the approach to local program needs, and to evaluate resident performance and progress over time.

Pathology Informatics Essentials for Residents: A flexible informatics curriculum linked to Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education milestones

PubMed Central

Henricks, Walter H; Karcher, Donald S; Harrison, James H; Sinard, John H; Riben, Michael W; Boyer, Philip J; Plath, Sue; Thompson, Arlene; Pantanowitz, Liron

2016-01-01

Context: Recognition of the importance of informatics to the practice of pathology has surged. Training residents in pathology informatics have been a daunting task for most residency programs in the United States because faculty often lacks experience and training resources. Nevertheless, developing resident competence in informatics is essential for the future of pathology as a specialty. Objective: The objective of the study is to develop and deliver a pathology informatics curriculum and instructional framework that guides pathology residency programs in training residents in critical pathology informatics knowledge and skills and meets Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Informatics Milestones. Design: The College of American Pathologists, Association of Pathology Chairs, and Association for Pathology Informatics formed a partnership and expert work group to identify critical pathology informatics training outcomes and to create a highly adaptable curriculum and instructional approach, supported by a multiyear change management strategy. Results: Pathology Informatics Essentials for Residents (PIER) is a rigorous approach for educating all pathology residents in important pathology informatics knowledge and skills. PIER includes an instructional resource guide and toolkit for incorporating informatics training into residency programs that vary in needs, size, settings, and resources. PIER is available at http://www.apcprods.org/PIER (accessed April 6, 2016). Conclusions: PIER is an important contribution to informatics training in pathology residency programs. PIER introduces pathology trainees to broadly useful informatics concepts and tools that are relevant to practice. PIER provides residency program directors with a means to implement a standardized informatics training curriculum, to adapt the approach to local program needs, and to evaluate resident performance and progress over time. PMID:27563486

Medical Informatics Education

PubMed Central

Patton, Gregory A.; Gardner, Reed M.

1999-01-01

The University of Utah has been educating health professionals in medical informatics since 1964. Over the 35 years since the program's inception, 272 graduate students have studied in the department. Most students have been male (80 percent) and have come from the United States (75 percent). Students entering the program have had diverse educational backgrounds, most commonly in medicine, engineering, computer science, or biology (59 percent of all informatics students). A total of 209 graduate degrees have been awarded, with an overall graduation rate of 87 percent since the program's start. Alumni are located in the United States (91 percent) and abroad (9 percent); half (51 percent) have remained in Utah. Former students are employed in a wide variety of jobs, primarily concerned with the application of medical informatics in sizable health care delivery organizations. Trends toward increasing managerial responsibility for medical informatics graduates and the emergence of the chief information officer role are noted. PMID:10579604

Medical informatics in morocco.

PubMed

Bouhaddou, O; Bennani Othmani, M; Diouny, S

2013-01-01

Informatics is an essential tool for helping to transform healthcare from a paper-based to a digital sector. This article explores the state-of-the-art of health informatics in Morocco. Specifically, it aims to give a general overview of the Moroccan healthcare system, the challenges it is facing, and the efforts undertaken by the informatics community and Moroccan government in terms of education, research and practice to reform the country's health sector. Through the experience of establishing Medical Informatics as a medical specialty in 2008, creating a Moroccan Medical Informatics Association in 2010 and holding a first national congress took place in April 2012, the authors present their assessment of some important priorities for health informatics in Morocco. These Moroccan initiatives are facilitating collaboration in education, research, and implementation of clinical information systems. In particular, the stakeholders have recognized the need for a national coordinator office and the development of a national framework for standards and interoperability. For developing countries like Morocco, new health IT approaches like mobile health and trans-media health advertising could help optimize scarce resources, improve access to rural areas and focus on the most prevalent health problems, optimizing health care access, quality, and cost for Morocco population.

Career Paths of Pathology Informatics Fellowship Alumni.

PubMed

Rudolf, Joseph W; Garcia, Christopher A; Hanna, Matthew G; Williams, Christopher L; Balis, Ulysses G; Pantanowitz, Liron; Tuthill, J Mark; Gilbertson, John R

2018-01-01

The alumni of today's Pathology Informatics and Clinical Informatics fellowships fill diverse roles in academia, large health systems, and industry. The evolving training tracks and curriculum of Pathology Informatics fellowships have been well documented. However, less attention has been given to the posttraining experiences of graduates from informatics training programs. Here, we examine the career paths of subspecialty fellowship-trained pathology informaticians. Alumni from four Pathology Informatics fellowship training programs were contacted for their voluntary participation in the study. We analyzed various components of training, and the subsequent career paths of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni using data extracted from alumni provided curriculum vitae. Twenty-three out of twenty-seven alumni contacted contributed to the study. A majority had completed undergraduate study in science, technology, engineering, and math fields and combined track training in anatomic and clinical pathology. Approximately 30% (7/23) completed residency in a program with an in-house Pathology Informatics fellowship. Most completed additional fellowships (15/23) and many also completed advanced degrees (10/23). Common primary posttraining appointments included chief medical informatics officer (3/23), director of Pathology Informatics (10/23), informatics program director (2/23), and various roles in industry (3/23). Many alumni also provide clinical care in addition to their informatics roles (14/23). Pathology Informatics alumni serve on a variety of institutional committees, participate in national informatics organizations, contribute widely to scientific literature, and more than half (13/23) have obtained subspecialty certification in Clinical Informatics to date. Our analysis highlights several interesting phenomena related to the training and career trajectory of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni. We note the long training track alumni complete in

The Unified Medical Language System: an informatics research collaboration.

PubMed

Humphreys, B L; Lindberg, D A; Schoolman, H M; Barnett, G O

1998-01-01

In 1986, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) assembled a large multidisciplinary, multisite team to work on the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), a collaborative research project aimed at reducing fundamental barriers to the application of computers to medicine. Beyond its tangible products, the UMLS Knowledge Sources, and its influence on the field of informatics, the UMLS project is an interesting case study in collaborative research and development. It illustrates the strengths and challenges of substantive collaboration among widely distributed research groups. Over the past decade, advances in computing and communications have minimized the technical difficulties associated with UMLS collaboration and also facilitated the development, dissemination, and use of the UMLS Knowledge Sources. The spread of the World Wide Web has increased the visibility of the information access problems caused by multiple vocabularies and many information sources which are the focus of UMLS work. The time is propitious for building on UMLS accomplishments and making more progress on the informatics research issues first highlighted by the UMLS project more than 10 years ago.

Informatics methodologies for evaluation research in the practice setting.

PubMed

Grant, A; Buteau, M; Richards, Y; Delisle, E; Laplante, P; Niyonsenga, T; Xhignesse, M

1998-06-01

A continuing challenge in health informatics and health evaluation is to enable access to the practice of health care so that the determinants of successful care and good health outcomes can be measured, evaluated and analysed. Furthermore the results of the analysis should be available to the health care practitioner or to the patient as might be appropriate, so that he or she can use this information for continual improvement of practice and optimisation of outcomes. In this paper we review two experiences, one in primary care, the FAMUS project, and the other in hospital care, the Autocontrol project. Each project demonstrates an informatics approach for evaluation research in the clinical setting and indicates ways in which useful information can be obtained which with appropriate feed-back and education can be used towards the achievement of better health. Emphasis is given to data collection methods compatible with practice and to high quality information feedback, particularly in the team context, to enable the formulation of strategies for practice improvement.

The Chief Clinical Informatics Officer (CCIO)

PubMed Central

Sengstack, Patricia; Thyvalikakath, Thankam Paul; Poikonen, John; Middleton, Blackford; Payne, Thomas; Lehmann, Christoph U

2016-01-01

Summary Introduction The emerging operational role of the “Chief Clinical Informatics Officer” (CCIO) remains heterogeneous with individuals deriving from a variety of clinical settings and backgrounds. The CCIO is defined in title, responsibility, and scope of practice by local organizations. The term encompasses the more commonly used Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) and Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO) as well as the rarely used Chief Pharmacy Informatics Officer (CPIO) and Chief Dental Informatics Officer (CDIO). Background The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) identified a need to better delineate the knowledge, education, skillsets, and operational scope of the CCIO in an attempt to address the challenges surrounding the professional development and the hiring processes of CCIOs. Discussion An AMIA task force developed knowledge, education, and operational skillset recommendations for CCIOs focusing on the common core aspect and describing individual differences based on Clinical Informatics focus. The task force concluded that while the role of the CCIO currently is diverse, a growing body of Clinical Informatics and increasing certification efforts are resulting in increased homogeneity. The task force advised that 1.) To achieve a predictable and desirable skillset, the CCIO must complete clearly defined and specified Clinical Informatics education and training. 2.) Future education and training must reflect the changing body of knowledge and must be guided by changing day-to-day informatics challenges. Conclusion A better defined and specified education and skillset for all CCIO positions will motivate the CCIO workforce and empower them to perform the job of a 21st century CCIO. Formally educated and trained CCIOs will provide a competitive advantage to their respective enterprise by fully utilizing the power of Informatics science. PMID:27081413

Exploring cancer genomic data from the cancer genome atlas project.

PubMed

Lee, Ju-Seog

2016-11-01

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) has compiled genomic, epigenomic, and proteomic data from more than 10,000 samples derived from 33 types of cancer, aiming to improve our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer development. Availability of these genome-wide information provides an unprecedented opportunity for uncovering new key regulators of signaling pathways or new roles of pre-existing members in pathways. To take advantage of the advancement, it will be necessary to learn systematic approaches that can help to uncover novel genes reflecting genetic alterations, prognosis, or response to treatments. This minireview describes the updated status of TCGA project and explains how to use TCGA data. [BMB Reports 2016; 49(11): 607-611].

Informatics Tools to Improve Clinical Research

PubMed Central

Argraves, S; Brandt, CA; Money, R; Nadkarni, P

2005-01-01

During the conduct of complex clinical trials, there are numerous sources and types of data collection and project coordination problems. Methods and approaches to address the conduct of a trial vary in both the cost and time to perform and the potential benefit. Informatics tools can help trial coordinators and investigators ensure the collection of high quality research data during all phases of a clinical trial. PMID:16779170

Pathology informatics questions and answers from the University of Pittsburgh pathology residency informatics rotation.

PubMed

Harrison, James H

2004-01-01

Effective pathology practice increasingly requires familiarity with concepts in medical informatics that may cover a broad range of topics, for example, traditional clinical information systems, desktop and Internet computer applications, and effective protocols for computer security. To address this need, the University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa) includes a full-time, 3-week rotation in pathology informatics as a required component of pathology residency training. To teach pathology residents general informatics concepts important in pathology practice. We assess the efficacy of the rotation in communicating these concepts using a short-answer examination administered at the end of the rotation. Because the increasing use of computers and the Internet in education and general communications prior to residency training has the potential to communicate key concepts that might not need additional coverage in the rotation, we have also evaluated incoming residents' informatics knowledge using a similar pretest. This article lists 128 questions that cover a range of topics in pathology informatics at a level appropriate for residency training. These questions were used for pretests and posttests in the pathology informatics rotation in the Pathology Residency Program at the University of Pittsburgh for the years 2000 through 2002. With slight modification, the questions are organized here into 15 topic categories within pathology informatics. The answers provided are brief and are meant to orient the reader to the question and suggest the level of detail appropriate in an answer from a pathology resident. A previously published evaluation of the test results revealed that pretest scores did not increase during the 3-year evaluation period, and self-assessed computer skill level correlated with pretest scores, but all pretest scores were low. Posttest scores increased substantially, and posttest scores did not correlate with the self-assessed computer skill level

TCGA divides gastric cancer into four molecular subtypes: implications for individualized therapeutics.

PubMed

Zhang, Wei

2014-10-01

Gastric cancer is a leading cause of cancer deaths in the world. The treatment of gastric cancer is challenging because of its highly heterogeneous etiology and clinical characteristics. Recent genomic and molecular characterization of gastric cancer, especially the findings reported by the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), have shed light on the heterogeneity and potential targeted therapeutics for four different subtypes of gastric cancer.

Conceptual Models in Health Informatics Research: A Literature Review and Suggestions for Development

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Background Contributing to health informatics research means using conceptual models that are integrative and explain the research in terms of the two broad domains of health science and information science. However, it can be hard for novice health informatics researchers to find exemplars and guidelines in working with integrative conceptual models. Objectives The aim of this paper is to support the use of integrative conceptual models in research on information and communication technologies in the health sector, and to encourage discussion of these conceptual models in scholarly forums. Methods A two-part method was used to summarize and structure ideas about how to work effectively with conceptual models in health informatics research that included (1) a selective review and summary of the literature of conceptual models; and (2) the construction of a step-by-step approach to developing a conceptual model. Results The seven-step methodology for developing conceptual models in health informatics research explained in this paper involves (1) acknowledging the limitations of health science and information science conceptual models; (2) giving a rationale for one’s choice of integrative conceptual model; (3) explicating a conceptual model verbally and graphically; (4) seeking feedback about the conceptual model from stakeholders in both the health science and information science domains; (5) aligning a conceptual model with an appropriate research plan; (6) adapting a conceptual model in response to new knowledge over time; and (7) disseminating conceptual models in scholarly and scientific forums. Conclusions Making explicit the conceptual model that underpins a health informatics research project can contribute to increasing the number of well-formed and strongly grounded health informatics research projects. This explication has distinct benefits for researchers in training, research teams, and researchers and practitioners in information, health, and other

Conceptual Models in Health Informatics Research: A Literature Review and Suggestions for Development.

PubMed

Gray, Kathleen; Sockolow, Paulina

2016-02-24

Contributing to health informatics research means using conceptual models that are integrative and explain the research in terms of the two broad domains of health science and information science. However, it can be hard for novice health informatics researchers to find exemplars and guidelines in working with integrative conceptual models. The aim of this paper is to support the use of integrative conceptual models in research on information and communication technologies in the health sector, and to encourage discussion of these conceptual models in scholarly forums. A two-part method was used to summarize and structure ideas about how to work effectively with conceptual models in health informatics research that included (1) a selective review and summary of the literature of conceptual models; and (2) the construction of a step-by-step approach to developing a conceptual model. The seven-step methodology for developing conceptual models in health informatics research explained in this paper involves (1) acknowledging the limitations of health science and information science conceptual models; (2) giving a rationale for one's choice of integrative conceptual model; (3) explicating a conceptual model verbally and graphically; (4) seeking feedback about the conceptual model from stakeholders in both the health science and information science domains; (5) aligning a conceptual model with an appropriate research plan; (6) adapting a conceptual model in response to new knowledge over time; and (7) disseminating conceptual models in scholarly and scientific forums. Making explicit the conceptual model that underpins a health informatics research project can contribute to increasing the number of well-formed and strongly grounded health informatics research projects. This explication has distinct benefits for researchers in training, research teams, and researchers and practitioners in information, health, and other disciplines.

Development of national competency-based learning objectives "Medical Informatics" for undergraduate medical education.

PubMed

Röhrig, R; Stausberg, J; Dugas, M

2013-01-01

The aim of this project is to develop a catalogue of competency-based learning objectives "Medical Informatics" for undergraduate medical education (abbreviated NKLM-MI in German). The development followed a multi-level annotation and consensus process. For each learning objective a reason why a physician needs this competence was required. In addition, each objective was categorized according to the competence context (A = covered by medical informatics, B = core subject of medical informatics, C = optional subject of medical informatics), the competence level (1 = referenced knowledge, 2 = applied knowledge, 3 = routine knowledge) and a CanMEDS competence role (medical expert, communicator, collaborator, manager, health advocate, professional, scholar). Overall 42 objectives in seven areas (medical documentation and information processing, medical classifications and terminologies, information systems in healthcare, health telematics and telemedicine, data protection and security, access to medical knowledge and medical signal-/image processing) were identified, defined and consented. With the NKLM-MI the competences in the field of medical informatics vital to a first year resident physician are identified, defined and operationalized. These competencies are consistent with the recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). The NKLM-MI will be submitted to the National Competence-Based Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education. The next step is implementation of these objectives by the faculties.

Training Multidisciplinary Biomedical Informatics Students: Three Years of Experience

PubMed Central

van Mulligen, Erik M.; Cases, Montserrat; Hettne, Kristina; Molero, Eva; Weeber, Marc; Robertson, Kevin A.; Oliva, Baldomero; de la Calle, Guillermo; Maojo, Victor

2008-01-01

Objective The European INFOBIOMED Network of Excellence 1 recognized that a successful education program in biomedical informatics should include not only traditional teaching activities in the basic sciences but also the development of skills for working in multidisciplinary teams. Design A carefully developed 3-year training program for biomedical informatics students addressed these educational aspects through the following four activities: (1) an internet course database containing an overview of all Medical Informatics and BioInformatics courses, (2) a BioMedical Informatics Summer School, (3) a mobility program based on a ‘brokerage service’ which published demands and offers, including funding for research exchange projects, and (4) training challenges aimed at the development of multi-disciplinary skills. Measurements This paper focuses on experiences gained in the development of novel educational activities addressing work in multidisciplinary teams. The training challenges described here were evaluated by asking participants to fill out forms with Likert scale based questions. For the mobility program a needs assessment was carried out. Results The mobility program supported 20 exchanges which fostered new BMI research, resulted in a number of peer-reviewed publications and demonstrated the feasibility of this multidisciplinary BMI approach within the European Union. Students unanimously indicated that the training challenge experience had contributed to their understanding and appreciation of multidisciplinary teamwork. Conclusion The training activities undertaken in INFOBIOMED have contributed to a multi-disciplinary BMI approach. It is our hope that this work might provide an impetus for training efforts in Europe, and yield a new generation of biomedical informaticians. PMID:18096914

Mapping the literature of nursing informatics.

PubMed

Guenther, Johanna T

2006-04-01

This study was part of the Medical Library Association's Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section's project to map the nursing literature. It identified core journals in nursing informatics and the journals referenced in them and analyzed coverage of those journals in selected indexes. Five core journals were chosen and analyzed for 1996, 1997, and 1998. The references in the core journal articles were examined for type and number of formats cited during the selected time period. Bradford's Law of Scattering divided the journals into frequency zones. The time interval, 1990 to 1998, produced 71% of the references. Internet references could not be tracked by date before 1990. Twelve journals were the most productive, 119 journals were somewhat productive, and 897 journals were the least productive. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association was the most prolific core journal. The 1998 journal references were compared in CINAHL, PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index, and OCLC Article First. PubMed/MEDLINE had the highest indexing score.

Nursing informatics competencies: bibliometric analysis.

PubMed

Kokol, Peter; Blažun, Helena; Vošner, Janez; Saranto, Kaija

2014-01-01

Information and communication technology is developing rapidly and it is incorporated in many health care processes, but in spite of that fact we can still notice that nursing informatics competencies had received limited attention in basic nursing education curricula in Europe and especially in Eastern European countries. The purpose of the present paper is to present the results of a bibliometric analysis of the nursing informatics competencies scientific literature production. We applied the bibliometrics analysis to the corpus of 332 papers found in SCOPUS, related to nursing informatics competencies. The results showed that there is a positive trend in the number of published papers per year, indicating the increased research interest in nursing informatics competencies. Despite the fact that the first paper was published in Denmark, the most prolific country regarding the research in nursing informatics competencies is United States as are their institutions and authors.

An Approach for All in Pharmacy Informatics Education.

PubMed

Fox, Brent I; Flynn, Allen; Clauson, Kevin A; Seaton, Terry L; Breeden, Elizabeth

2017-03-25

Computerization is transforming health care. All clinicians are users of health information technology (HIT). Understanding fundamental principles of informatics, the field focused on information needs and uses, is essential if HIT is going to support improved patient outcomes. Informatics education for clinicians is a national priority. Additionally, some informatics experts are needed to bring about innovations in HIT. A common approach to pharmacy informatics education has been slow to develop. Meanwhile, accreditation standards for informatics in pharmacy education continue to evolve. A gap remains in the implementation of informatics education for all pharmacy students and it is unclear what expert informatics training should cover. In this article, we propose the first of two complementary approaches to informatics education in pharmacy: to incorporate fundamental informatics education into pharmacy curricula for all students. The second approach, to train those students interested in becoming informatics experts to design, develop, implement, and evaluate HIT, will be presented in a subsequent issue of the Journal .

An Approach for All in Pharmacy Informatics Education

PubMed Central

Flynn, Allen; Clauson, Kevin A.; Seaton, Terry L.; Breeden, Elizabeth

2017-01-01

Computerization is transforming health care. All clinicians are users of health information technology (HIT). Understanding fundamental principles of informatics, the field focused on information needs and uses, is essential if HIT is going to support improved patient outcomes. Informatics education for clinicians is a national priority. Additionally, some informatics experts are needed to bring about innovations in HIT. A common approach to pharmacy informatics education has been slow to develop. Meanwhile, accreditation standards for informatics in pharmacy education continue to evolve. A gap remains in the implementation of informatics education for all pharmacy students and it is unclear what expert informatics training should cover. In this article, we propose the first of two complementary approaches to informatics education in pharmacy: to incorporate fundamental informatics education into pharmacy curricula for all students. The second approach, to train those students interested in becoming informatics experts to design, develop, implement, and evaluate HIT, will be presented in a subsequent issue of the Journal. PMID:28381898

Informatics Competencies for Nursing and Healthcare Leaders

PubMed Central

Westra, Bonnie L.; Delaney, Connie W.

2008-01-01

Historically, educational preparation did not address informatics competencies; thus managers, administrators, or executives may not be prepared to use or lead change in the use of health information technologies. A number of resources for informatics competencies exist, however, a comprehensive list addressing the unique knowledge and skills required in the role of a manager or administrator was not found. The purpose of this study was to develop informatics competencies for nursing leaders. A synthesis of the literature and a Delphi approach using three rounds of surveys with an expert panel resulted in identification of informatics competencies for nursing leaders that address computer skills, informatics knowledge, and informatics skills. PMID:18998803

Current Status of Nursing Informatics Education in Korea.

PubMed

Jeon, Eunjoo; Kim, Jeongeun; Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Lee, Ji-Hyun; Kim, Jungha; Jin, Meiling; Ahn, Shinae; Jun, Jooyeon; Song, Healim; On, Jeongah; Jung, Hyesil; Hong, Yeong Joo; Yim, Suran

2016-04-01

This study presents the current status of nursing informatics education, the content covered in nursing informatics courses, the faculty efficacy, and the barriers to and additional supports for teaching nursing informatics in Korea. A set of questionnaires consisting of an 18-item questionnaire for nursing informatics education, a 6-item questionnaire for faculty efficacy, and 2 open-ended questions for barriers and additional supports were sent to 204 nursing schools via email and the postal service. Nursing schools offering nursing informatics were further asked to send their syllabuses. The subjects taught were analyzed using nursing informatics competency categories and other responses were tailed using descriptive statistics. A total of 72 schools (35.3%) responded to the survey, of which 38 reported that they offered nursing informatics courses in their undergraduate nursing programs. Nursing informatics courses at 11 schools were taught by a professor with a degree majoring in nursing informatics. Computer technology was the most frequently taught subject (27 schools), followed by information systems used for practice (25 schools). The faculty efficacy was 3.76 ± 0.86 (out of 5). The most frequently reported barrier to teaching nursing informatics (n = 9) was lack of awareness of the importance of nursing informatics. Training and educational opportunities was the most requested additional support. Nursing informatics education has increased during the last decade in Korea. However, the proportions of faculty with degrees in nursing informatics and number of schools offering nursing informatics courses have not increased much. Thus, a greater focus is needed on training faculty and developing the courses.

Health Informatics: An Overview.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacDougall, Jennifer; And Others

1996-01-01

Reviews literature related to health informatics and health information management. Provides examples covering types of information, library and information services outcomes, training of informatics professionals, areas of application, the impact of evidence based medicine, professional issues, integrated information systems, and the needs of the…

Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on education in health and medical informatics.

PubMed

2000-08-01

The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) agreed on international recommendations in health informatics/medical informatics education. These should help to establish courses, course tracks or even complete programs in this field, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations and to support international initiatives concerning education in health and medical informatics (HMI), particularly international activities in educating HMI specialists and the sharing of courseware. The IMIA recommendations centre on educational needs for healthcare professionals to acquire knowledge and skills in information processing and information and communication technology. The educational needs are described as a three-dimensional framework. The dimensions are: 1) professionals in healthcare (physicians, nurses, HMI professionals, ...), 2) type of specialisation in health and medical informatics (IT users, HMI specialists) and 3) stage of career progression (bachelor, master, ...). Learning outcomes are defined in terms of knowledge and practical skills for healthcare professionals in their role (a) as IT user and (b) as HMI specialist. Recommendations are given for courses/course tracks in HMI as part of educational programs in medicine, nursing, healthcare management, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, health record administration, and informatics/computer science as well as for dedicated programs in HMI (with bachelor, master or doctor degree). To support education in HMI, IMIA offers to award a certificate for high quality HMI education and supports information exchange on programs and courses in HMI through a WWW server of its Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education (http:www.imia.org/wg1).

Current Status of Nursing Informatics Education in Korea

PubMed Central

Jeon, Eunjoo; Kim, Jeongeun; Lee, Ji-Hyun; Kim, Jungha; Jin, Meiling; Ahn, Shinae; Jun, Jooyeon; Song, Healim; On, Jeongah; Jung, Hyesil; Hong, Yeong Joo; Yim, Suran

2016-01-01

Objectives This study presents the current status of nursing informatics education, the content covered in nursing informatics courses, the faculty efficacy, and the barriers to and additional supports for teaching nursing informatics in Korea. Methods A set of questionnaires consisting of an 18-item questionnaire for nursing informatics education, a 6-item questionnaire for faculty efficacy, and 2 open-ended questions for barriers and additional supports were sent to 204 nursing schools via email and the postal service. Nursing schools offering nursing informatics were further asked to send their syllabuses. The subjects taught were analyzed using nursing informatics competency categories and other responses were tailed using descriptive statistics. Results A total of 72 schools (35.3%) responded to the survey, of which 38 reported that they offered nursing informatics courses in their undergraduate nursing programs. Nursing informatics courses at 11 schools were taught by a professor with a degree majoring in nursing informatics. Computer technology was the most frequently taught subject (27 schools), followed by information systems used for practice (25 schools). The faculty efficacy was 3.76 ± 0.86 (out of 5). The most frequently reported barrier to teaching nursing informatics (n = 9) was lack of awareness of the importance of nursing informatics. Training and educational opportunities was the most requested additional support. Conclusions Nursing informatics education has increased during the last decade in Korea. However, the proportions of faculty with degrees in nursing informatics and number of schools offering nursing informatics courses have not increased much. Thus, a greater focus is needed on training faculty and developing the courses. PMID:27200224

Informatics in Turkey

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cakir, Serhat

1994-01-01

In the last twenty years the rapid change in the informatics sector has had economic and social impact on private and government activities. The Supreme Council for Science and Technology of Turkey assigned highest priority to the informatics in its meeting in February 1993. With this advice TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey) intends to give a strong impulse to development of a research policy in this field.

Nursing Informatics Certification Worldwide: History, Pathway, Roles, and Motivation

PubMed Central

Cummins, M. R.; Gundlapalli, A. V.; Murray, P.; Park, H.-A.; Lehmann, C. U.

2016-01-01

Summary Introduction Official recognition and certification for informatics professionals are essential aspects of workforce development. Objective: To describe the history, pathways, and nuances of certification in nursing informatics across the globe; compare and contrast those with board certification in clinical informatics for physicians. Methods (1) A review of the representative literature on informatics certification and related competencies for nurses and physicians, and relevant websites for nursing informatics associations and societies worldwide; (2) similarities and differences between certification processes for nurses and physicians, and (3) perspectives on roles for nursing informatics professionals in healthcare Results The literature search for ‘nursing informatics certification’ yielded few results in PubMed; Google Scholar yielded a large number of citations that extended to magazines and other non-peer reviewed sources. Worldwide, there are several nursing informatics associations, societies, and workgroups dedicated to nursing informatics associated with medical/health informatics societies. A formal certification program for nursing informatics appears to be available only in the United States. This certification was established in 1992, in concert with the formation and definition of nursing informatics as a specialty practice of nursing by the American Nurses Association. Although informatics is inherently interprofessional, certification pathways for nurses and physicians have developed separately, following long-standing professional structures, training, and pathways aligned with clinical licensure and direct patient care. There is substantial similarity with regard to the skills and competencies required for nurses and physicians to obtain informatics certification in their respective fields. Nurses may apply for and complete a certification examination if they have experience in the field, regardless of formal training. Increasing

Informatics and Technology in Resident Education.

PubMed

Niehaus, William

2017-05-01

Biomedical or clinical informatics is the transdisciplinary field that studies and develops effective uses of biomedical data, information technology innovations, and medical knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision making, with an emphasis on improving human health. Given the ongoing advances in information technology, the field of informatics is becoming important to clinical practice and to residency education. This article will discuss how informatics is specifically relevant to residency education and the different ways to incorporate informatics into residency education, and will highlight applications of current technology in the context of residency education. How informatics can optimize communication for residents, promote information technology use, refine documentation techniques, reduce medical errors, and improve clinical decision making will be reviewed. It is hoped that this article will increase faculty and trainees' knowledge of the field of informatics, awareness of available technology, and will assist practitioners to maximize their ability to provide quality care to their patients. This article will also introduce the idea of incorporating informatics specialists into residency programs to help practitioners deliver more evidenced-based care and to further improve their efficiency. Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on education in health and medical informatics.

PubMed

2004-01-01

The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) agreed on international recommendations in health informatics / medical informatics education. These should help to establish courses, course tracks or even complete programs in this field, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations and to support international initiatives concerning education in health and medical informatics (HMI), particularly international activities in educating HMI specialists and the sharing of courseware. The IMIA recommendations centre on educational needs for health care professionals to acquire knowledge and skills in information processing and information and communication technology. The educational needs are described as a three-dimensional framework. The dimensions are: 1) professionals in health care (physicians, nurses, HMI professionals, ...), 2) type of specialisation in health and medical informatics (IT users, HMI specialists) and 3) stage of career progression (bachelor, master, ...). Learning outcomes are defined in terms of knowledge and practical skills for health care professionals in their role (a) as IT user and (b) as HMI specialist. Recommendations are given for courses/course tracks in HMI as part of educational programs in medicine, nursing, health care management, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, health record administration, and informatics/computer science as well as for dedicated programs in HMI (with bachelor, master or doctor degree). To support education in HMI, IMIA offers to award a certificate for high quality HMI education and supports information exchange on programs and courses in HMI through a WWW server of its Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education (http://www.imia.org/wg1).

Teacher Perception on Educational Informatics Network: A Qualitative Study of a Turkish Anatolian High School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karalar, Halit; Dogan, Ugur

2017-01-01

FATIH Project carried out by the Turkish government is one of the comprehensive technology integration project in the World. With this project, interactive boards, tablets and multifunctional printers have been distributed to schools and Internet infrastructure of schools improved. EIN (Educational Informatics Network) platform, known as EBA…

Mapping the literature of nursing informatics

PubMed Central

Guenther, Johanna T.

2006-01-01

Objective: This study was part of the Medical Library Association's Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section's project to map the nursing literature. It identified core journals in nursing informatics and the journals referenced in them and analyzed coverage of those journals in selected indexes. Method: Five core journals were chosen and analyzed for 1996, 1997, and 1998. The references in the core journal articles were examined for type and number of formats cited during the selected time period. Bradford's Law of Scattering divided the journals into frequency zones. Results: The time interval, 1990 to 1998, produced 71% of the references. Internet references could not be tracked by date before 1990. Twelve journals were the most productive, 119 journals were somewhat productive, and 897 journals were the least productive. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association was the most prolific core journal. The 1998 journal references were compared in CINAHL, PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index, and OCLC Article First. PubMed/MEDLINE had the highest indexing score. PMID:16710469

Crossing Borders: An Online Interdisciplinary Course in Health Informatics for Students From Two Countries.

PubMed

Fossum, Mariann; Fruhling, Ann; Moe, Carl Erik; Thompson, Cheryl Bagley

2017-04-01

A cross-countries and interprofessional novel approach for delivering an international interdisciplinary graduate health informatics course online is presented. Included in this discussion are the challenges, lessons learned, and pedagogical recommendations from the experiences of teaching the course. Four professors from three different fields and from three universities collaborated in offering an international health informatics course for an interdisciplinary group of 18 US and seven Norwegian students. Highly motivated students and professors, an online technology infrastructure that supported asynchronously communication and course delivery, the ability to adapt the curriculum to meet the pedagogy requirements at all universities, and the support of higher administration for international collaboration were enablers for success. This project demonstrated the feasibility and advantages of an interdisciplinary, interprofessional, and cross-countries approach in teaching health informatics online. Students were able to establish relationships and conduct professional conversations across disciplines and international boundaries using content management software. This graduate course can be used as a part of informatics, computer science, and/or health science programs.

Public Policy and Health Informatics.

PubMed

Bell, Katherine

2018-05-01

To provide an overview of the history of electronic health policy and identify significant laws that influence health informatics. US Department of Health and Human Services. The development of health information technology has influenced the process for delivering health care. Public policy and regulations are an important part of health informatics and establish the structure of electronic health systems. Regulatory bodies of the government initiate policies to ease the execution of electronic health record implementation. These same bureaucratic entities regulate the system to protect the rights of the patients and providers. Nurses should have an overall understanding of the system behind health informatics and be able to advocate for change. Nurses can utilize this information to optimize the use of health informatics and campaign for safe, effective, and efficient health information technology. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

2018 Informatics Tool Challenge Winners

Cancer.gov

DCEG announced six winners of the 2018 DCEG Informatics Tool Challenge, a competitive funding program that supports innovation to enhance epidemiological methods, data collection, analysis, and other research using modern technology and informatics. Learn more about the winning innovations.

The scope and direction of health informatics.

PubMed

McGinnis, Patrick J

2002-05-01

Health Informatics (HI) is a dynamic discipline based on the medical sciences, information sciences, and cognitive sciences. Its domain can broadly be defined as medical information management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of this domain, discuss the current "state of the art," and indicate the likely growth areas for health informatics. The sources of information used in this paper are selected publications from the literature of Health Informatics, HI 5300: Introduction to Health Informatics, which is a course from the Department of Health Informatics at the University of Texas Houston Health Sciences Center, and the author's personal experience in practicing telemedicine and implementing an electronic medical record at the NASA-Johnson Space Center. The conclusion is that the direction of Health Informatics is in the direction of data management, transfer, and representation via electronic medical records and the Internet.

The Scope and Direction of Health Informatics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McGinnis, Patrick J.

2001-01-01

Health Informatics (HI) is a dynamic discipline based upon the medical sciences, information sciences, and cognitive sciences. Its domain is can broadly be defined as medical information management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of this domain, discuss the current "state of the art" , and indicate the likely growth areas for health informatics. The sources of information utilized in this paper are selected publications from the literature of Health Informatics, HI 5300: Introduction to Health Informatics, which is a course from the Department of Health Informatics at the University of Texas Houston Health Sciences Center, and the author's personal experience in practicing telemedicine and implementing an electronic medical record at the NASA Johnson Space Center. The conclusion is that the direction of Health Informatics is in the direction of data management, transfer, and representation via electronic medical records and the Internet.

The scope and direction of health informatics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McGinnis, Patrick J.

2002-01-01

Health Informatics (HI) is a dynamic discipline based on the medical sciences, information sciences, and cognitive sciences. Its domain can broadly be defined as medical information management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of this domain, discuss the current "state of the art," and indicate the likely growth areas for health informatics. The sources of information used in this paper are selected publications from the literature of Health Informatics, HI 5300: Introduction to Health Informatics, which is a course from the Department of Health Informatics at the University of Texas Houston Health Sciences Center, and the author's personal experience in practicing telemedicine and implementing an electronic medical record at the NASA-Johnson Space Center. The conclusion is that the direction of Health Informatics is in the direction of data management, transfer, and representation via electronic medical records and the Internet.

SYMBIOmatics: synergies in Medical Informatics and Bioinformatics--exploring current scientific literature for emerging topics.

PubMed

Rebholz-Schuhman, Dietrich; Cameron, Graham; Clark, Dominic; van Mulligen, Erik; Coatrieux, Jean-Louis; Del Hoyo Barbolla, Eva; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando; Milanesi, Luciano; Porro, Ivan; Beltrame, Francesco; Tollis, Ioannis; Van der Lei, Johan

2007-03-08

The SYMBIOmatics Specific Support Action (SSA) is "an information gathering and dissemination activity" that seeks "to identify synergies between the bioinformatics and the medical informatics" domain to improve collaborative progress between both domains (ref. to http://www.symbiomatics.org). As part of the project experts in both research fields will be identified and approached through a survey. To provide input to the survey, the scientific literature was analysed to extract topics relevant to both medical informatics and bioinformatics. This paper presents results of a systematic analysis of the scientific literature from medical informatics research and bioinformatics research. In the analysis pairs of words (bigrams) from the leading bioinformatics and medical informatics journals have been used as indication of existing and emerging technologies and topics over the period 2000-2005 ("recent") and 1990-1990 ("past"). We identified emerging topics that were equally important to bioinformatics and medical informatics in recent years such as microarray experiments, ontologies, open source, text mining and support vector machines. Emerging topics that evolved only in bioinformatics were system biology, protein interaction networks and statistical methods for microarray analyses, whereas emerging topics in medical informatics were grid technology and tissue microarrays. We conclude that although both fields have their own specific domains of interest, they share common technological developments that tend to be initiated by new developments in biotechnology and computer science.

How can we improve Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education to encourage careers in Biomedical and Pathology Informatics?

PubMed

Uppal, Rahul; Mandava, Gunasheil; Romagnoli, Katrina M; King, Andrew J; Draper, Amie J; Handen, Adam L; Fisher, Arielle M; Becich, Michael J; Dutta-Moscato, Joyeeta

2016-01-01

The Computer Science, Biology, and Biomedical Informatics (CoSBBI) program was initiated in 2011 to expose the critical role of informatics in biomedicine to talented high school students.[1] By involving them in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) training at the high school level and providing mentorship and research opportunities throughout the formative years of their education, CoSBBI creates a research infrastructure designed to develop young informaticians. Our central premise is that the trajectory necessary to be an expert in the emerging fields of biomedical informatics and pathology informatics requires accelerated learning at an early age.In our 4(th) year of CoSBBI as a part of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Academy (http://www.upci.upmc.edu/summeracademy/), and our 2nd year of CoSBBI as an independent informatics-based academy, we enhanced our classroom curriculum, added hands-on computer science instruction, and expanded research projects to include clinical informatics. We also conducted a qualitative evaluation of the program to identify areas that need improvement in order to achieve our goal of creating a pipeline of exceptionally well-trained applicants for both the disciplines of pathology informatics and biomedical informatics in the era of big data and personalized medicine.

Craniofacial imaging informatics and technology development.

PubMed

Vannier, M W

2003-01-01

'Craniofacial imaging informatics' refers to image and related scientific data from the dentomaxillofacial complex, and application of 'informatics techniques' (derived from disciplines such as applied mathematics, computer science and statistics) to understand and organize the information associated with the data. Major trends in information technology determine the progress made in craniofacial imaging and informatics. These trends include industry consolidation, disruptive technologies, Moore's law, electronic atlases and on-line databases. Each of these trends is explained and documented, relative to their influence on craniofacial imaging. Craniofacial imaging is influenced by major trends that affect all medical imaging and related informatics applications. The introduction of cone beam craniofacial computed tomography scanners is an example of a disruptive technology entering the field. An important opportunity lies in the integration of biologic knowledge repositories with craniofacial images. The progress of craniofacial imaging will continue subject to limitations imposed by the underlying technologies, especially imaging informatics. Disruptive technologies will play a major role in the evolution of this field.

Towards health informatics 3.0. Editorial.

PubMed

Kulikowski, Casimir A; Geissbuhler, Antoine

2011-01-01

To provide an editorial introduction to the 2011 IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics with an overview of its contents and contributors. A brief overview of the main theme, and an outline of the purposes, contents, format, and acknowledgment of contributions for the 2011 IMIA Yearbook. This 2011 issue of the IMIA Yearbook highlights important developments in the development of Web 3.0 capabilities that are increasing in Health Informatics, impacting the activities in research, education and practice in this interdisciplinary field. There has been steady progress towards introducing semantics into informatics systems through more sophisticated representations of knowledge in their underlying information. Health Informatics 3.0 capabilities are identified from the recent literature, illustrated by selected papers published during the past 12 months, and articles reported by IMIA Working Groups. Surveys of the main research sub-fields in biomedical informatics in the Yearbook provide an overview of progress and current challenges across the spectrum of the discipline, focusing on Web 3.0 challenges and opportunities.

UCSC Xena | Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)

Cancer.gov

UCSC Xena securely analyzes and visualizes your private functional genomics data set in the context of public and shared genomic/phenotypic data sets such as TCGA, ICGC, TARGET, GTEx, and GA4GH (TOIL).

B-CAN: a resource sharing platform to improve the operation, visualization and integrated analysis of TCGA breast cancer data

PubMed Central

Wen, Can-Hong; Ou, Shao-Min; Guo, Xiao-Bo; Liu, Chen-Feng; Shen, Yan-Bo; You, Na; Cai, Wei-Hong; Shen, Wen-Jun; Wang, Xue-Qin; Tan, Hai-Zhu

2017-01-01

Breast cancer is a high-risk heterogeneous disease with myriad subtypes and complicated biological features. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) breast cancer database provides researchers with the large-scale genome and clinical data via web portals and FTP services. Researchers are able to gain new insights into their related fields, and evaluate experimental discoveries with TCGA. However, it is difficult for researchers who have little experience with database and bioinformatics to access and operate on because of TCGA’s complex data format and diverse files. For ease of use, we build the breast cancer (B-CAN) platform, which enables data customization, data visualization, and private data center. The B-CAN platform runs on Apache server and interacts with the backstage of MySQL database by PHP. Users can customize data based on their needs by combining tables from original TCGA database and selecting variables from each table. The private data center is applicable for private data and two types of customized data. A key feature of the B-CAN is that it provides single table display and multiple table display. Customized data with one barcode corresponding to many records and processed customized data are allowed in Multiple Tables Display. The B-CAN is an intuitive and high-efficient data-sharing platform. PMID:29312567

Toward an Informatics Research Agenda

PubMed Central

Kaplan, Bonnie; Brennan, Patricia Flatley; Dowling, Alan F.; Friedman, Charles P.; Peel, Victor

2001-01-01

As we have advanced in medical informatics and created many impressive innovations, we also have learned that technologic developments are not sufficient to bring the value of computer and information technologies to health care systems. This paper proposes a model for improving how we develop and deploy information technology. The authors focus on trends in people, organizational, and social issues (POI/OSI), which are becoming more complex as both health care institutions and information technologies are changing rapidly. They outline key issues and suggest high-priority research areas. One dimension of the model concerns different organizational levels at which informatics applications are used. The other dimension draws on social science disciplines for their approaches to studying implications of POI/OSI in informatics. By drawing on a wide variety of research approaches and asking questions based in social science disciplines, the authors propose a research agenda for high-priority issues, so that the challenges they see ahead for informatics may be met better. PMID:11320068

Nursing informatics, outcomes, and quality improvement.

PubMed

Charters, Kathleen G

2003-08-01

Nursing informatics actively supports nursing by providing standard language systems, databases, decision support, readily accessible research results, and technology assessments. Through normalized datasets spanning an entire enterprise or other large demographic, nursing informatics tools support improvement of healthcare by answering questions about patient outcomes and quality improvement on an enterprise scale, and by providing documentation for business process definition, business process engineering, and strategic planning. Nursing informatics tools provide a way for advanced practice nurses to examine their practice and the effect of their actions on patient outcomes. Analysis of patient outcomes may lead to initiatives for quality improvement. Supported by nursing informatics tools, successful advance practice nurses leverage their quality improvement initiatives against the enterprise strategic plan to gain leadership support and resources.

Comparative effectiveness research and medical informatics.

PubMed

D'Avolio, Leonard W; Farwell, Wildon R; Fiore, Louis D

2010-12-01

As is the case for environmental, ecological, astronomical, and other sciences, medical practice and research finds itself in a tsunami of data. This data deluge, due primarily to the introduction of digitalization in routine medical care and medical research, affords the opportunity for improved patient care and scientific discovery. Medical informatics is the subdiscipline of medicine created to make greater use of information in order to improve healthcare. The 4 areas of medical informatics research (information access, structure, analysis, and interaction) are used as a framework to discuss the overlap in information needs of comparative effectiveness research and potential contributions of medical informatics. Examples of progress from the medical informatics literature and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System are provided. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Creating a pipeline of talent for informatics: STEM initiative for high school students in computer science, biology, and biomedical informatics

PubMed Central

Dutta-Moscato, Joyeeta; Gopalakrishnan, Vanathi; Lotze, Michael T.; Becich, Michael J.

2014-01-01

This editorial provides insights into how informatics can attract highly trained students by involving them in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) training at the high school level and continuing to provide mentorship and research opportunities through the formative years of their education. Our central premise is that the trajectory necessary to be expert in the emergent fields in front of them requires acceleration at an early time point. Both pathology (and biomedical) informatics are new disciplines which would benefit from involvement by students at an early stage of their education. In 2009, Michael T Lotze MD, Kirsten Livesey (then a medical student, now a medical resident at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)), Richard Hersheberger, PhD (Currently, Dean at Roswell Park), and Megan Seippel, MS (the administrator) launched the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Summer Academy to bring high school students for an 8 week summer academy focused on Cancer Biology. Initially, pathology and biomedical informatics were involved only in the classroom component of the UPCI Summer Academy. In 2011, due to popular interest, an informatics track called Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics (CoSBBI) was launched. CoSBBI currently acts as a feeder program for the undergraduate degree program in bioinformatics at the University of Pittsburgh, which is a joint degree offered by the Departments of Biology and Computer Science. We believe training in bioinformatics is the best foundation for students interested in future careers in pathology informatics or biomedical informatics. We describe our approach to the recruitment, training and research mentoring of high school students to create a pipeline of exceptionally well-trained applicants for both the disciplines of pathology informatics and biomedical informatics. We emphasize here how mentoring of high school students in pathology informatics and biomedical informatics

Creating a pipeline of talent for informatics: STEM initiative for high school students in computer science, biology, and biomedical informatics.

PubMed

Dutta-Moscato, Joyeeta; Gopalakrishnan, Vanathi; Lotze, Michael T; Becich, Michael J

2014-01-01

This editorial provides insights into how informatics can attract highly trained students by involving them in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) training at the high school level and continuing to provide mentorship and research opportunities through the formative years of their education. Our central premise is that the trajectory necessary to be expert in the emergent fields in front of them requires acceleration at an early time point. Both pathology (and biomedical) informatics are new disciplines which would benefit from involvement by students at an early stage of their education. In 2009, Michael T Lotze MD, Kirsten Livesey (then a medical student, now a medical resident at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)), Richard Hersheberger, PhD (Currently, Dean at Roswell Park), and Megan Seippel, MS (the administrator) launched the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Summer Academy to bring high school students for an 8 week summer academy focused on Cancer Biology. Initially, pathology and biomedical informatics were involved only in the classroom component of the UPCI Summer Academy. In 2011, due to popular interest, an informatics track called Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics (CoSBBI) was launched. CoSBBI currently acts as a feeder program for the undergraduate degree program in bioinformatics at the University of Pittsburgh, which is a joint degree offered by the Departments of Biology and Computer Science. We believe training in bioinformatics is the best foundation for students interested in future careers in pathology informatics or biomedical informatics. We describe our approach to the recruitment, training and research mentoring of high school students to create a pipeline of exceptionally well-trained applicants for both the disciplines of pathology informatics and biomedical informatics. We emphasize here how mentoring of high school students in pathology informatics and biomedical informatics

Military research needs in biomedical informatics.

PubMed

Reifman, Jaques; Gilbert, Gary R; Fagan, Lawrence; Satava, Richard

2002-01-01

The 2001 U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) Biomedical Informatics Roadmap Meeting was devoted to developing a strategic plan in four focus areas: Hospital and Clinical Informatics, E-Health, Combat Health Informatics, and Bioinformatics and Biomedical Computation. The driving force of this Roadmap Meeting was the recent accelerated pace of change in biomedical informatics in which emerging technologies have the potential to affect significantly the Army research portfolio and investment strategy in these focus areas. The meeting was structured so that the first two days were devoted to presentations from experts in the field, including representatives from the three services, other government agencies, academia, and the private sector, and the morning of the last day was devoted to capturing specific biomedical informatics research needs in the four focus areas. This white paper summarizes the key findings and recommendations and should be a powerful tool for the crafting of future requests for proposals to help align USAMRMC new strategic research investments with new developments and emerging technologies.

Mining TCGA Data Using Boolean Implications

PubMed Central

Sinha, Subarna; Tsang, Emily K.; Zeng, Haoyang; Meister, Michela; Dill, David L.

2014-01-01

Boolean implications (if-then rules) provide a conceptually simple, uniform and highly scalable way to find associations between pairs of random variables. In this paper, we propose to use Boolean implications to find relationships between variables of different data types (mutation, copy number alteration, DNA methylation and gene expression) from the glioblastoma (GBM) and ovarian serous cystadenoma (OV) data sets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We find hundreds of thousands of Boolean implications from these data sets. A direct comparison of the relationships found by Boolean implications and those found by commonly used methods for mining associations show that existing methods would miss relationships found by Boolean implications. Furthermore, many relationships exposed by Boolean implications reflect important aspects of cancer biology. Examples of our findings include cis relationships between copy number alteration, DNA methylation and expression of genes, a new hierarchy of mutations and recurrent copy number alterations, loss-of-heterozygosity of well-known tumor suppressors, and the hypermethylation phenotype associated with IDH1 mutations in GBM. The Boolean implication results used in the paper can be accessed at http://crookneck.stanford.edu/microarray/TCGANetworks/. PMID:25054200

SYMBIOmatics: Synergies in Medical Informatics and Bioinformatics – exploring current scientific literature for emerging topics

PubMed Central

Rebholz-Schuhman, Dietrich; Cameron, Graham; Clark, Dominic; van Mulligen, Erik; Coatrieux, Jean-Louis; Del Hoyo Barbolla, Eva; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando; Milanesi, Luciano; Porro, Ivan; Beltrame, Francesco; Tollis, Ioannis; Van der Lei, Johan

2007-01-01

Background The SYMBIOmatics Specific Support Action (SSA) is "an information gathering and dissemination activity" that seeks "to identify synergies between the bioinformatics and the medical informatics" domain to improve collaborative progress between both domains (ref. to ). As part of the project experts in both research fields will be identified and approached through a survey. To provide input to the survey, the scientific literature was analysed to extract topics relevant to both medical informatics and bioinformatics. Results This paper presents results of a systematic analysis of the scientific literature from medical informatics research and bioinformatics research. In the analysis pairs of words (bigrams) from the leading bioinformatics and medical informatics journals have been used as indication of existing and emerging technologies and topics over the period 2000–2005 ("recent") and 1990–1990 ("past"). We identified emerging topics that were equally important to bioinformatics and medical informatics in recent years such as microarray experiments, ontologies, open source, text mining and support vector machines. Emerging topics that evolved only in bioinformatics were system biology, protein interaction networks and statistical methods for microarray analyses, whereas emerging topics in medical informatics were grid technology and tissue microarrays. Conclusion We conclude that although both fields have their own specific domains of interest, they share common technological developments that tend to be initiated by new developments in biotechnology and computer science. PMID:17430562

Informatics for the Modern Intensive Care Unit.

PubMed

Anderson, Diana C; Jackson, Ashley A; Halpern, Neil A

Advanced informatics systems can help improve health care delivery and the environment of care for critically ill patients. However, identifying, testing, and deploying advanced informatics systems can be quite challenging. These processes often require involvement from a collaborative group of health care professionals of varied disciplines with knowledge of the complexities related to designing the modern and "smart" intensive care unit (ICU). In this article, we explore the connectivity environment within the ICU, middleware technologies to address a host of patient care initiatives, and the core informatics concepts necessary for both the design and implementation of advanced informatics systems.

Crossing the Chasm: Information Technology to Biomedical Informatics

PubMed Central

Fahy, Brenda G.; Balke, C. William; Umberger, Gloria H.; Talbert, Jeffery; Canales, Denise Niles; Steltenkamp, Carol L.; Conigliaro, Joseph

2011-01-01

Accelerating the translation of new scientific discoveries to improve human health and disease management is the overall goal of a series of initiatives integrated in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “Roadmap for Medical Research.” The Clinical and Translational Research Award (CTSA) program is, arguably, the most visible component of the NIH Roadmap providing resources to institutions to transform their clinical and translational research enterprises along the goals of the Roadmap. The CTSA program emphasizes biomedical informatics as a critical component for the accomplishment of the NIH’s translational objectives. To be optimally effective, emerging biomedical informatics programs must link with the information technology (IT) platforms of the enterprise clinical operations within academic health centers. This report details one academic health center’s transdisciplinary initiative to create an integrated academic discipline of biomedical informatics through the development of its infrastructure for clinical and translational science infrastructure and response to the CTSA mechanism. This approach required a detailed informatics strategy to accomplish these goals. This transdisciplinary initiative was the impetus for creation of a specialized biomedical informatics core, the Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBI). Development of the CBI codified the need to incorporate medical informatics including quality and safety informatics and enterprise clinical information systems within the CBI. This paper describes the steps taken to develop the biomedical informatics infrastructure, its integration with clinical systems at one academic health center, successes achieved, and barriers encountered during these efforts. PMID:21383632

Crossing the chasm: information technology to biomedical informatics.

PubMed

Fahy, Brenda G; Balke, C William; Umberger, Gloria H; Talbert, Jeffery; Canales, Denise Niles; Steltenkamp, Carol L; Conigliaro, Joseph

2011-06-01

Accelerating the translation of new scientific discoveries to improve human health and disease management is the overall goal of a series of initiatives integrated in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) "Roadmap for Medical Research." The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program is, arguably, the most visible component of the NIH Roadmap providing resources to institutions to transform their clinical and translational research enterprises along the goals of the Roadmap. The CTSA program emphasizes biomedical informatics as a critical component for the accomplishment of the NIH's translational objectives. To be optimally effective, emerging biomedical informatics programs must link with the information technology platforms of the enterprise clinical operations within academic health centers.This report details one academic health center's transdisciplinary initiative to create an integrated academic discipline of biomedical informatics through the development of its infrastructure for clinical and translational science infrastructure and response to the CTSA mechanism. This approach required a detailed informatics strategy to accomplish these goals. This transdisciplinary initiative was the impetus for creation of a specialized biomedical informatics core, the Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBI). Development of the CBI codified the need to incorporate medical informatics including quality and safety informatics and enterprise clinical information systems within the CBI. This article describes the steps taken to develop the biomedical informatics infrastructure, its integration with clinical systems at one academic health center, successes achieved, and barriers encountered during these efforts.

The Impact of Imaging Informatics Fellowships.

PubMed

Liao, Geraldine J; Nagy, Paul G; Cook, Tessa S

2016-08-01

Imaging informatics (II) is an area within clinical informatics that is particularly important in the field of radiology. Provider groups have begun employing dedicated radiologist-informaticists to bridge medical, information technology and administrative functions, and academic institutions are meeting this demand through formal II fellowships. However, little is known about how these programs influence graduates' careers and perceptions about professional development. We electronically surveyed 26 graduates from US II fellowships and consensus leaders in the II community-many of whom were subspecialty diagnostic radiologists (68%) employed within academic institutions (48%)-about the perceived impact of II fellowships on career development and advancement. All graduates felt that II fellowship made them more valuable to employers, with the majority of reporting ongoing II roles (78%) and continued used of competencies (61%) and skills (56%) gained during fellowship in their current jobs. Other key benefits included access to mentors, protected time for academic work, networking opportunities, and positive impacts of annual compensation. Of respondents without II fellowship training, all would recommend fellowships to current trainees given the ability to gain a "still rare" but "essential skill set" that is "critical for future leaders in radiology" and "better job opportunities." While some respondents felt that II fellowships needed further formalization and standardization, most (85%) disagreed with requiring a 2-year II fellowship in order to qualify for board certification in clinical informatics. Instead, most believed that fellowships should be integrated with clinical residency or fellowship training while preserving formal didactics and unstructured project time. More work is needed to understand existing variations in II fellowship training structure and identify the optimal format for programs targeted at radiologists.

Capacity building in e-health and health informatics: a review of the global vision and informatics educational initiatives of the American Medical Informatics Association.

PubMed

Detmer, D E

2010-01-01

Substantial global and national commitment will be required for current healthcare systems and health professional practices to become learning care systems utilizing information and communications technology (ICT) empowered by informatics. To engage this multifaceted challenge, a vision is required that shifts the emphasis from silos of activities toward integrated systems. Successful systems will include a set of essential elements, e.g., a sufficient ICT infrastructure, evolving health care processes based on evidence and harmonized to local cultures, a fresh view toward educational preparation, sound and sustained policy support, and ongoing applied research and development. Increasingly, leaders are aware that ICT empowered by informatics must be an integral part of their national and regional visions. This paper sketches out the elements of what is needed in terms of objectives and some steps toward achieving them. It summarizes some of the progress that has been made to date by the American and International Medical Informatics Associations working separately as well as collaborating to conceptualize informatics capacity building in order to bring this vision to reality in low resource nations in particular.

Integrating medical informatics into the medical undergraduate curriculum.

PubMed

Khonsari, L S; Fabri, P J

1997-01-01

The advent of healthcare reform and the rapid application of new technologies have resulted in a paradigm shift in medical practice. Integrating medical Informatics into the full spectrum of medical education is a viral step toward implementing this new instructional model, a step required for the understanding and practice of modern medicine. We have developed an informatics curriculum, a new educational paradigm, and an intranet-based teaching module which are designed to enhance adult-learning principles, life-long self education, and evidence-based critical thinking. Thirty two, fourth year medical students have participated in a one month, full time, independent study focused on but not limited to four topics: mastering the windows-based environment, understanding hospital based information management systems, developing competence in using the internet/intranet and world wide web/HTML, and experiencing distance communication and TeleVideo networks. Each student has completed a clinically relevant independent study project utilizing technology mastered during the course. This initial curriculum offering was developed in conjunction with faculty from the College of Medicine, College of Engineering, College of Education, College of Business, College of Public Health. Florida Center of Instructional Technology, James A. Haley Veterans Hospital, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa General Hospital, GTE, Westshore Walk-in Clinic (paperless office), and the Florida Engineering Education Delivery System. Our second step toward the distributive integration process was the introduction of Medical Informatics to first, second and third year medical students. To date, these efforts have focused on undergraduate medical education. Our next step is to offer workshops in Informatics to college of medicine faculty, to residents in post graduate training programs (GME), and ultimately as a method of distance learning in continuing medical education (CME).

Molecular Pathology Informatics.

PubMed

Roy, Somak

2015-06-01

Molecular informatics (MI) is an evolving discipline that will support the dynamic landscape of molecular pathology and personalized medicine. MI provides a fertile ground for development of clinical solutions to bridge the gap between clinical informatics and bioinformatics. Rapid adoption of next generation sequencing (NGS) in the clinical arena has triggered major endeavors in MI that are expected to bring a paradigm shift in the practice of pathology. This brief review presents a broad overview of various aspects of MI, particularly in the context of NGS based testing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An overview of medical informatics education in China.

PubMed

Hu, Dehua; Sun, Zhenling; Li, Houqing

2013-05-01

To outline the history of medical informatics education in the People's Republic of China, systematically analyze the current status of medical informatics education at different academic levels (bachelor's, master's, and doctoral), and suggest reasonable strategies for the further development of the field in China. The development of medical informatics education was divided into three stages, defined by changes in the specialty's name. Systematic searches of websites for material related to the specialty of medical informatics were then conducted. For undergraduate education, the websites surveyed included the website of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (MOE) and those of universities or colleges identified using the baidu.com search engine. For postgraduate education, the websites included China's Graduate Admissions Information Network (CGAIN) and the websites of the universities or their schools or faculties. Specialties were selected on the basis of three criteria: (1) for undergraduate education, the name of specialty or program was medical informatics or medical information or information management and information system; for postgraduate education, medical informatics or medical information; (2) the specialty was approved and listed by the MOE; (3) the specialty was set up by a medical college or medical university, or a school of medicine of a comprehensive university. The information abstracted from the websites included the year of program approval and listing, the university/college, discipline catalog, discipline, specialty, specialty code, objectives, and main courses. A total of 55 program offerings for undergraduate education, 27 for master's-level education, and 5 for PhD-level education in medical informatics were identified and assessed in China. The results indicate that medical informatics education, a specialty rooted in medical library and information science education in China, has grown significantly in that

Medical informatics across Europe: analysis of medical informatics scientific output in 33 European countries.

PubMed

Polašek, Ozren; Kern, Josipa

2012-01-01

To investigate the medical informatics scientific output in 33 European countries. Medical Subject Heading term "medical informatics" was used to identify all relevant articles published in 1998-2007 and indexed in the Medline database. The number of articles was adjusted to the population size of each included country in order to obtain the rates per million inhabitants. A total of 28,604 articles were identified. The highest number per million inhabitants was found for Switzerland and the lowest for Albania. Overall, European Union member states had higher output than non-member states, gross domestic product was strongly associated with the scientific output in the field of medical informatics (r = 0.88, p < 0.001). While most countries had significant increase in the scientific output during the observed period, an adjustment to the European average output trend suggested that Lithuania, Portugal, Serbia and Spain had a greater increase than the rest of Europe. The results suggest large disparities across Europe. Further development of medical informatics as a profession and a clear recognition of the discipline are needed to reduce these disparities and propel further increase in research productivity.

Medical Informatics Education & Research in Greece.

PubMed

Chouvarda, I; Maglaveras, N

2015-08-13

This paper aims to present an overview of the medical informatics landscape in Greece, to describe the Greek ehealth background and to highlight the main education and research axes in medical informatics, along with activities, achievements and pitfalls. With respect to research and education, formal and informal sources were investigated and information was collected and presented in a qualitative manner, including also quantitative indicators when possible. Greece has adopted and applied medical informatics education in various ways, including undergraduate courses in health sciences schools as well as multidisciplinary postgraduate courses. There is a continuous research effort, and large participation in EU-wide initiatives, in all the spectrum of medical informatics research, with notable scientific contributions, although technology maturation is not without barriers. Wide-scale deployment of eHealth is anticipated in the healthcare system in the near future. While ePrescription deployment has been an important step, ICT for integrated care and telehealth have a lot of room for further deployment. Greece is a valuable contributor in the European medical informatics arena, and has the potential to offer more as long as the barriers of research and innovation fragmentation are addressed and alleviated.

Informatics and operations--let's get integrated.

PubMed

Marsolo, Keith

2013-01-01

The widespread adoption of commercial electronic health records (EHRs) presents a significant challenge to the field of informatics. In their current form, EHRs function as a walled garden and prevent the integration of outside tools and services. This impedes the widespread adoption and diffusion of research interventions into the clinic. In most institutions, EHRs are supported by clinical operations staff who are largely separate from their informatics counterparts. This relationship needs to change. Research informatics and clinical operations need to work more closely on the implementation and configuration of EHRs to ensure that they are used to collect high-quality data for research and improvement at the point of care. At the same time, the informatics community needs to lobby commercial EHR vendors to open their systems and design new architectures that allow for the integration of external applications and services.

Biomedical informatics training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

PubMed

Severtson, D J; Pape, L; Page, C D; Shavlik, J W; Phillips, G N; Flatley Brennan, P

2007-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to describe biomedical informatics training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). We reviewed biomedical informatics training, research, and faculty/trainee participation at UW-Madison. There are three primary approaches to training 1) The Computation & Informatics in Biology & Medicine Training Program, 2) formal biomedical informatics offered by various campus departments, and 3) individualized programs. Training at UW-Madison embodies the features of effective biomedical informatics training recommended by the American College of Medical Informatics that were delineated as: 1) curricula that integrate experiences among computational sciences and application domains, 2) individualized and interdisciplinary cross-training among a diverse cadre of trainees to develop key competencies that he or she does not initially possess, 3) participation in research and development activities, and 4) exposure to a range of basic informational and computational sciences. The three biomedical informatics training approaches immerse students in multidisciplinary training and education that is supported by faculty trainers who participate in collaborative research across departments. Training is provided across a range of disciplines and available at different training stages. Biomedical informatics training at UW-Madison illustrates how a large research University, with multiple departments across biological, computational and health fields, can provide effective and productive biomedical informatics training via multiple bioinformatics training approaches.

PREFACE: International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics 2010

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Inoue, Jun-ichi; Kabashima, Yoshiyuki; Tanaka, Kazuyuki; Tanaka, Toshiyuki

2010-04-01

Everything that exists in the natural world is made up of several types of elementary particles. However, we cannot understand nature simply by identifying the properties of these particles. This is because collections of the particles sometimes exhibit completely unexpected collective phenomena, quite independently of the individual particles' properties. In the physical sciences, the importance of focusing on the properties of objects composed of a large number of constituents is reflected in the phrase, "More is different." The main concept of the research project, the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas `Deepening and Expansion of Statistical Mechanical Informatics (DEX-SMI)' (Head Investigator: Yoshiyuki Kabashima, Tokyo Institute of Technology) (Project Webpage DEX-SMI), launched in 2006, was to introduce this perspective into information science under the common slogan, "More is different in informatics as well." As milestones in the research activity, the International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics (IW-SMI) was held annually, featuring studies of information and communication (2007), quantum information (2008), and bioinformatics (2009). The workshop series provided fruitful opportunities for leading researchers of various disciplines to interact with one another, which led to several collaborative studies. The final workshop, IW-SMI2010, was held at Shiran Kaikan, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, on 7-10 March 2010 to wrap up the achievements of the four years of activity in the DEX-SMI research project. This workshop also aimed to bring together leading researchers in the physical and information sciences to discuss possible future directions for further exploring the successes of DEX-SMI. We would like to thank the contributors of the workshop as well as all the participants. We hope that the successes of IW-SMI2010 and DEX-SMI will lead to further development of this highly vigorous interdisciplinary field between

Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics. First Revision.

PubMed

Mantas, John; Ammenwerth, Elske; Demiris, George; Hasman, Arie; Haux, Reinhold; Hersh, William; Hovenga, Evelyn; Lun, K C; Marin, Heimar; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando; Wright, Graham

2010-01-07

Objective: The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) agreed on revising the existing international recommendations in health informatics/medical informatics education. These should help to establish courses, course tracks or even complete programs in this field, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations and to support international initiatives concerning education in biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), particularly international activities in educating BMHI specialists and the sharing of courseware. Method: An IMIA task force, nominated in 2006, worked on updating the recommendations' first version. These updates have been broadly discussed and refined by members of IMIA's National Member Societies, IMIA's Academic Institutional Members and by members of IMIA's Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education. Results and Conclusions: The IMIA recommendations center on educational needs for health care professionals to acquire knowledge and skills in information processing and information and communication technology. The educational needs are described as a three-dimensional framework. The dimensions are: 1) professionals in health care (e.g. physicians, nurses, BMHI professionals), 2) type of specialization in BMHI (IT users, BMHI specialists), and 3) stage of career progression (bachelor, master, doctorate). Learning outcomes are defined in terms of knowledge and practical skills for health care professionals in their role a) as IT user and b) as BMHI specialist. Recommendations are given for courses/course tracks in BMHI as part of educational programs in medicine, nursing, health care management, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, health record administration, and informatics/computer science as well as for dedicated programs in BMHI (with bachelor, master or doctor degree). To support education in BMHI, IMIA offers to award a certificate for high-quality BMHI education. It supports information

Different tracks for pathology informatics fellowship training: Experiences of and input from trainees in a large multisite fellowship program

PubMed Central

Levy, Bruce P.; McClintock, David S.; Lee, Roy E.; Lane, William J.; Klepeis, Veronica E.; Baron, Jason M.; Onozato, Maristela L.; Kim, JiYeon; Brodsky, Victor; Beckwith, Bruce; Kuo, Frank; Gilbertson, John R.

2012-01-01

Background: Pathology Informatics is a new field; a field that is still defining itself even as it begins the formalization, accreditation, and board certification process. At the same time, Pathology itself is changing in a variety of ways that impact informatics, including subspecialization and an increased use of data analysis. In this paper, we examine how these changes impact both the structure of Pathology Informatics fellowship programs and the fellows’ goals within those programs. Materials and Methods: As part of our regular program review process, the fellows evaluated the value and effectiveness of our existing fellowship tracks (Research Informatics, Clinical Two-year Focused Informatics, Clinical One-year Focused Informatics, and Clinical 1 + 1 Subspecialty Pathology and Informatics). They compared their education, informatics background, and anticipated career paths and analyzed them for correlations between those parameters and the fellowship track chosen. All current and past fellows of the program were actively involved with the project. Results: Fellows’ anticipated career paths correlated very well with the specific tracks in the program. A small set of fellows (Clinical – one or two year – Focused Informatics tracks) anticipated clinical careers primarily focused in informatics (Director of Informatics). The majority of the fellows, however, anticipated a career practicing in a Pathology subspecialty, using their informatics training to enhance that practice (Clinical 1 + 1 Subspecialty Pathology and Informatics Track). Significantly, all fellows on this track reported they would not have considered a Clinical Two-year Focused Informatics track if it was the only track offered. The Research and the Clinical One-year Focused Informatics tracks each displayed unique value for different situations. Conclusions: It seems a “one size fits all” fellowship structure does not fit the needs of the majority of potential Pathology Informatics

Bioimage informatics for experimental biology

PubMed Central

Swedlow, Jason R.; Goldberg, Ilya G.; Eliceiri, Kevin W.

2012-01-01

Over the last twenty years there have been great advances in light microscopy with the result that multi-dimensional imaging has driven a revolution in modern biology. The development of new approaches of data acquisition are reportedly frequently, and yet the significant data management and analysis challenges presented by these new complex datasets remains largely unsolved. Like the well-developed field of genome bioinformatics, central repositories are and will be key resources, but there is a critical need for informatics tools in individual laboratories to help manage, share, visualize, and analyze image data. In this article we present the recent efforts by the bioimage informatics community to tackle these challenges and discuss our own vision for future development of bioimage informatics solution. PMID:19416072

Massive open online course for health informatics education.

PubMed

Paton, Chris

2014-04-01

This paper outlines a new method of teaching health informatics to large numbers of students from around the world through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). The Health Informatics Forum is a social networking site for educating health informatics students and professionals [corrected]. It is running a MOOC for students from around the world that uses creative commons licenced content funded by the US government and developed by five US universities. The content is delivered through narrated lectures with slides that can be viewed online with discussion threads on the forum for class interactions. Students can maintain a professional profile, upload photos and files, write their own blog posts and post discussion threads on the forum. The Health Informatics Forum MOOC has been accessed by 11,316 unique users from 127 countries from August 2, 2012 to January 24, 2014. Most users accessed the MOOC via a desktop computer, followed by tablets and mobile devices and 55% of users were female. Over 400,000 unique users have now accessed the wider Health Informatics Forum since it was established in 2008. Advances in health informatics and educational technology have both created a demand for online learning material in health informatics and a solution for providing it. By using a MOOC delivered through a social networking platform it is hoped that high quality health informatics education will be able to be delivered to a large global audience of future health informaticians without cost.

Investigation of miR-136-5p key target genes and pathways in lung squamous cell cancer based on TCGA database and bioinformatics analysis.

PubMed

Xie, Zu-Cheng; Li, Tian-Tian; Gan, Bin-Liang; Gao, Xiang; Gao, Li; Chen, Gang; Hu, Xiao-Hua

2018-05-01

Lung squamous cell cancer (LUSC) is a common but challenging malignancy. It is important to illuminate the molecular mechanism of LUSC. Thus, we aim to explore the molecular mechanism of miR-136-5p in relation to LUSC. We used the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to investigate the expression of miR-136-5p in relation to LUSC. Then, we identified the possible miR-136-5p target genes through intersection of the predicted miR-136-5p target genes and LUSC upregulated genes from TCGA. Bioinformatics analysis was performed to determine the key miR-136-5p targets and pathways associated with LUSC. Finally, the expression of hub genes, correlation between miR-136-5p and hub genes, and expected significance of hub genes were evaluated via the TCGA and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. MiR-136-5p was significantly downregulated in LUSC patients. Glucuronidation, glucuronosyltransferase, and the retinoic acid metabolic process were the most enriched metabolic interactions in LUSC patients. Ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, pentose and glucuronate interconversions, and retinol metabolism were identified as crucial pathways. Seven hub genes (UGT1A1, UGT1A3, UGT1A6, UGT1A7, UGT1A10, SRD5A1, and ADH7) were found to be upregulated, and UGT1A1, UGT1A3, UGT1A6, UGT1A7, and ADH7 were negatively correlated with miR-136-5p. UGT1A7 and ADH7 were the most significantly involved miR-136-5p target genes, and high expression of these genes was correlated with better overall survival and disease-free survival of LUSC patients. Downregulated miR-136-5p may target UGT1A7 and ADH7 and participate in ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, pentose and glucuronate interconversions, and retinol metabolism. High expression of UGT1A7 and ADH7 may indicate better prognosis of LUSC patients. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier GmbH.

Farm animal genomics and informatics: an update

PubMed Central

Fadiel, Ahmed; Anidi, Ifeanyi; Eichenbaum, Kenneth D.

2005-01-01

Farm animal genomics is of interest to a wide audience of researchers because of the utility derived from understanding how genomics and proteomics function in various organisms. Applications such as xenotransplantation, increased livestock productivity, bioengineering new materials, products and even fabrics are several reasons for thriving farm animal genome activity. Currently mined in rapidly growing data warehouses, completed genomes of chicken, fish and cows are available but are largely stored in decentralized data repositories. In this paper, we provide an informatics primer on farm animal bioinformatics and genome project resources which drive attention to the most recent advances in the field. We hope to provide individuals in biotechnology and in the farming industry with information on resources and updates concerning farm animal genome projects. PMID:16275782

Medical Informatics Education & Research in Greece

PubMed Central

Chouvarda, I.

2015-01-01

Summary Objectives This paper aims to present an overview of the medical informatics landscape in Greece, to describe the Greek ehealth background and to highlight the main education and research axes in medical informatics, along with activities, achievements and pitfalls. Methods With respect to research and education, formal and informal sources were investigated and information was collected and presented in a qualitative manner, including also quantitative indicators when possible. Results Greece has adopted and applied medical informatics education in various ways, including undergraduate courses in health sciences schools as well as multidisciplinary postgraduate courses. There is a continuous research effort, and large participation in EU-wide initiatives, in all the spectrum of medical informatics research, with notable scientific contributions, although technology maturation is not without barriers. Wide-scale deployment of eHealth is anticipated in the healthcare system in the near future. While ePrescription deployment has been an important step, ICT for integrated care and telehealth have a lot of room for further deployment. Conclusions Greece is a valuable contributor in the European medical informatics arena, and has the potential to offer more as long as the barriers of research and innovation fragmentation are addressed and alleviated. PMID:26123910

Museum Informatics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marty, Paul F.; Rayward, W. Boyd; Twidale, Michael B.

2003-01-01

Discusses museum informatics that studies how information science and technology affect the museum environment. Examines digital technology; information organization and access; digitization, personal computers, and the Internet; data sharing; standards; social impacts of new technologies; collaboration; consortia; multimedia exhibits; virtual…

Informatics for multi-disciplinary ocean sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pearlman, Jay; Delory, Eric; Pissierssens, Peter; Raymond, Lisa; Simpson, Pauline; Waldmann, Christoph; Williams 3rd, Albert; Yoder, Jim

2014-05-01

Ocean researchers must work across disciplines to provide clear and understandable assessments of the state of the ocean. With advances in technology, not only in observation, but also communication and computer science, we are in a new era where we can answer questions at the time and space scales that are relevant to our state of the art research needs. This presentation will address three areas of the informatics of the end-to-end process: sensors and information extraction in the sensing environment; using diverse data for understanding selected ocean processes; and supporting open data initiatives. A National Science Foundation funded Ocean Observations Research Coordination Network (RCN) is addressing these areas from the perspective of improving interdisciplinary research. The work includes an assessment of Open Data Access with a paper in preparation. Interoperability and sensors is a new activity that couples with European projects, COOPEUS and NeXOS, in looking at sensors and related information systems for a new generation of measurement capability. A working group on synergies of in-situ and satellite remote sensing is analyzing approaches for more effective use of these measurements. This presentation will examine the steps forward for data exchange and for addressing gaps in communication and informatics.

Massive Open Online Course for Health Informatics Education

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Objectives This paper outlines a new method of teaching health informatics to large numbers of students from around the world through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Methods The Health Informatics Forum is one of examples of MOOCs through a social networking site for educating health informatics students and professionals. It is running a MOOC for students from around the world that uses creative commons licenced content funded by the US government and developed by five US universities. The content is delivered through narrated lectures with slides that can be viewed online with discussion threads on the forum for class interactions. Students can maintain a professional profile, upload photos and files, write their own blog posts and post discussion threads on the forum. Results The Health Informatics Forum MOOC has been accessed by 11,316 unique users from 127 countries from August 2, 2012 to January 24, 2014. Most users accessed the MOOC via a desktop computer, followed by tablets and mobile devices and 55% of users were female. Over 400,000 unique users have now accessed the wider Health Informatics Forum since it was established in 2008. Conclusions Advances in health informatics and educational technology have both created a demand for online learning material in health informatics and a solution for providing it. By using a MOOC delivered through a social networking platform it is hoped that high quality health informatics education will be able to be delivered to a large global audience of future health informaticians without cost. PMID:24872906

History of health informatics: a global perspective.

PubMed

Cesnik, Branko; Kidd, Michael R

2010-01-01

In considering a 'history' of Health Informatics it is important to be aware that the discipline encompasses a wide array of activities, products, research and theories. Health Informatics is as much a result of evolution as planned philosophy, having its roots in the histories of information technology and medicine. The process of its growth continues so that today's work is tomorrow's history. A 'historical' discussion of the area is its history to date, a report rather than a summation. As well as its successes, the history of Health Informatics is populated with visionary promises that have failed to materialise despite the best intentions. For those studying the subject or working in the field, the experiences of others' use of Information Technologies for the betterment of health care can provide a necessary perspective. This chapter starts by noting some of the major events and people that form a technological backdrop to Health Informatics and ends with some thoughts on the future. This chapter gives an educational overview of: * The history of computing * The beginnings of the health informatics discipline.

A near miss: the importance of context in a public health informatics project in a New Zealand case study.

PubMed

Wells, Stewart; Bullen, Chris

2008-01-01

This article describes the near failure of an information technology (IT) system designed to support a government-funded, primary care-based hepatitis B screening program in New Zealand. Qualitative methods were used to collect data and construct an explanatory model. Multiple incorrect assumptions were made about participants, primary care workflows and IT capacity, software vendor user knowledge, and the health IT infrastructure. Political factors delayed system development and it was implemented untested, almost failing. An intensive rescue strategy included system modifications, relaxation of data validity rules, close engagement with software vendors, and provision of intensive on-site user support. This case study demonstrates that consideration of the social, political, technological, and health care contexts is important for successful implementation of public health informatics projects.

Discussion on informatization teaching of certain radar transmitter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liang, Guanhui; Lv, Guizhou; Meng, Yafeng

2017-04-01

With the development of informatization, the traditional teaching method of certain radar transmitter is more and more difficult to meet the need of cultivating new type of high-quality military talents. This paper first analyzes the problems traditional teaching method of certain radar transmitter, and then puts forward the strategy of informatization teaching, and finally elaborates the concrete steps and contents of informatization teaching. Using the multimedia maintenance training system, information simulation training system and network courses and other informatization means, effectively improves the master degree to radar transmitter by trainees, but also lays a good foundation for repair in the next step.

Health Informatics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell, Marie; Brittain, J. Michael

2002-01-01

Identifies current trends and issues in health informatics with examples of applications, particularly in English-speaking countries. Topics include health systems, professionals, and patients; consumer health information; electronic medical records; nursing; privacy and confidentiality; finding and using information; the Internet; e-mail;…

An informatics strategy for cancer care

PubMed Central

Wright, J; Shogan, A; McCune, J; Stevens, S

2008-01-01

Whether transitioning from paper to electronic records or attempting to leverage data from existing systems for outcome studies, oncology practices face many challenges in defining and executing an informatics strategy. With the increasing costs of oncology treatments and expected changes in reimbursement rules, including requirements for evidence that supports physician decisions, it will become essential to collect data on treatment decisions and treatment efficacy to run a successful program. This study evaluates the current state of informatics systems available for use in oncology programs and focuses on developing an informatics strategy to meet the challenges introduced by expected changes in reimbursement rules and in medical and information technologies. PMID:21611003

NASA Biomedical Informatics Capabilities and Needs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson-Throop, Kathy A.

2009-01-01

To improve on-orbit clinical capabilities by developing and providing operational support for intelligent, robust, reliable, and secure, enterprise-wide and comprehensive health care and biomedical informatics systems with increasing levels of autonomy, for use on Earth, low Earth orbit & exploration class missions. Biomedical Informatics is an emerging discipline that has been defined as the study, invention, and implementation of structures and algorithms to improve communication, understanding and management of medical information. The end objective of biomedical informatics is the coalescing of data, knowledge, and the tools necessary to apply that data and knowledge in the decision-making process, at the time and place that a decision needs to be made.

Medical informatics education needs information system practicums in health care settings--experiences and lessons learned from 32 practicums at four universities in two countries.

PubMed

Haux, R; Ammenwerth, E; Häber, A; Hübner-Bloder, G; Knaup-Gregori, P; Lechleitner, G; Leiner, F; Weber, R; Winter, A; Wolff, A C

2006-01-01

To report about the themes and about experiences with practicums in the management of information systems in health care settings (health information management) for medical informatics students. We first summarize the topics of the health information management practicums/projects that the authors organized between 1990 and 2003 for the medical informatics programs at Heidelberg/Heilbronn, Germany, UMIT, Austria, as well as for the informatics program at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Experiences and lessons learned, obtained from the faculty that organized the practicums in the past 14 years, are reported. Thirty (of 32) health information management practicums focused on the analysis of health information systems. These took place inside university medical centers. Although the practicums were time-intensive and required intensively tutoring students with regard to health information management and project management, feedback from the students and graduates was mainly positive. It is clearly recommended that students specializing in medical informatics need to be confronted with real-world problems of health information systems during their studies.

Informatics and the Organization of Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Weert, Tom J.

1992-01-01

Defines informatics as both a pure and an applied science dealing with information technology and its uses and examines the organization of education from two different perspectives: how applications of informatics may impact on education, forcing it to change; and how the educational system may deal with problems to effectively integrate…

Early experiences of accredited clinical informatics fellowships.

PubMed

Longhurst, Christopher A; Pageler, Natalie M; Palma, Jonathan P; Finnell, John T; Levy, Bruce P; Yackel, Thomas R; Mohan, Vishnu; Hersh, William R

2016-07-01

Since the launch of the clinical informatics subspecialty for physicians in 2013, over 1100 physicians have used the practice and education pathways to become board-certified in clinical informatics. Starting in 2018, only physicians who have completed a 2-year clinical informatics fellowship program accredited by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education will be eligible to take the board exam. The purpose of this viewpoint piece is to describe the collective experience of the first four programs accredited by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education and to share lessons learned in developing new fellowship programs in this novel medical subspecialty. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A molecular informatics view on best practice in multi-parameter compound optimization.

PubMed

Lusher, Scott J; McGuire, Ross; Azevedo, Rita; Boiten, Jan-Willem; van Schaik, Rene C; de Vlieg, Jacob

2011-07-01

The difference between biologically active molecules and drugs is that the latter balance an array of related and unrelated properties required for administration to patients. Inevitability, during optimization, some of these multiple factors will conflict. Although informatics has a crucial role in addressing the challenges of modern compound optimization, it is arguably still undervalued and underutilized. We present here some of the basic requirements of multi-parameter drug design, the crucial role of informatics and examples of favorable practice. The most crucial of these best practices are the need for informaticians to align their technologies and insights directly to discovery projects and for all scientists in drug discovery to become more proficient in the use of in silico methods. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Structural Study in the Platform for Drug Discovery, Informatics, and Structural Life Science].

PubMed

Senda, Toshiya

2016-01-01

The Platform for Drug Discovery, Informatics, and Structural Life Science (PDIS), which has been launched since FY2012, is a national project in the field of structural biology. The PDIS consists of three cores - structural analysis, control, and informatics - and aims to support life science researchers who are not familiar with structural biology. The PDIS project is able to provide full-scale support for structural biology research. The support provided by the PDIS project includes protein purification with various expression systems, large scale protein crystallization, crystal structure determination, small angle scattering (SAXS), NMR, electron microscopy, bioinformatics, etc. In order to utilize these methods of support, PDIS users need to submit an application form to the one-stop service office. Submitted applications will be reviewed by three referees. It is strongly encouraged that PDIS users have sufficient discussion with researchers in the PDIS project before submitting the application. This discussion is very useful in the process of project design, particularly for beginners in structural biology. In addition to this user support, the PDIS project has conducted R&D, which includes the development of synchrotron beamlines. In the PDIS project, PF and SPring-8 have developed beamlines for micro-crystallography, high-throughput data collection, supramolecular assembly, and native single anomalous dispersion (SAD) phasing. The newly developed beamlines have been open to all users, and have accelerated structural biology research. Beamlines for SAXS have also been developed, which has dramatically increased bio-SAXS users.

An information technology emphasis in biomedical informatics education.

PubMed

Kane, Michael D; Brewer, Jeffrey L

2007-02-01

Unprecedented growth in the interdisciplinary domain of biomedical informatics reflects the recent advancements in genomic sequence availability, high-content biotechnology screening systems, as well as the expectations of computational biology to command a leading role in drug discovery and disease characterization. These forces have moved much of life sciences research almost completely into the computational domain. Importantly, educational training in biomedical informatics has been limited to students enrolled in the life sciences curricula, yet much of the skills needed to succeed in biomedical informatics involve or augment training in information technology curricula. This manuscript describes the methods and rationale for training students enrolled in information technology curricula in the field of biomedical informatics, which augments the existing information technology curriculum and provides training on specific subjects in Biomedical Informatics not emphasized in bioinformatics courses offered in life science programs, and does not require prerequisite courses in the life sciences.

Knowledge, Skills, and Resources for Pharmacy Informatics Education

PubMed Central

Fox, Brent I.; Flynn, Allen J.; Fortier, Christopher R.; Clauson, Kevin A.

2011-01-01

Pharmacy has an established history of technology use to support business processes. Pharmacy informatics education within doctor of pharmacy programs, however, is inconsistent, despite its inclusion as a requirement in the 2007 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education Standards and Guidelines. This manuscript describes pharmacy informatics knowledge and skills that all graduating pharmacy students should possess, conceptualized within the framework of the medication use process. Additionally, we suggest core source materials and specific learning activities to support pharmacy informatics education. We conclude with a brief discussion of emerging changes in the practice model. These changes are facilitated by pharmacy informatics and will inevitably become commonplace in our graduates’ practice environment. PMID:21829267

Knowledge, skills, and resources for pharmacy informatics education.

PubMed

Fox, Brent I; Flynn, Allen J; Fortier, Christopher R; Clauson, Kevin A

2011-06-10

Pharmacy has an established history of technology use to support business processes. Pharmacy informatics education within doctor of pharmacy programs, however, is inconsistent, despite its inclusion as a requirement in the 2007 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education Standards and Guidelines. This manuscript describes pharmacy informatics knowledge and skills that all graduating pharmacy students should possess, conceptualized within the framework of the medication use process. Additionally, we suggest core source materials and specific learning activities to support pharmacy informatics education. We conclude with a brief discussion of emerging changes in the practice model. These changes are facilitated by pharmacy informatics and will inevitably become commonplace in our graduates' practice environment.

Integrating community-based participatory research and informatics approaches to improve the engagement and health of underserved populations

PubMed Central

Schaefbauer, Chris L; Campbell, Terrance R; Senteio, Charles; Siek, Katie A; Bakken, Suzanne; Veinot, Tiffany C

2016-01-01

Objective We compare 5 health informatics research projects that applied community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches with the goal of extending existing CBPR principles to address issues specific to health informatics research. Materials and methods We conducted a cross-case analysis of 5 diverse case studies with 1 common element: integration of CBPR approaches into health informatics research. After reviewing publications and other case-related materials, all coauthors engaged in collaborative discussions focused on CBPR. Researchers mapped each case to an existing CBPR framework, examined each case individually for success factors and barriers, and identified common patterns across cases. Results Benefits of applying CBPR approaches to health informatics research across the cases included the following: developing more relevant research with wider impact, greater engagement with diverse populations, improved internal validity, more rapid translation of research into action, and the development of people. Challenges of applying CBPR to health informatics research included requirements to develop strong, sustainable academic-community partnerships and mismatches related to cultural and temporal factors. Several technology-related challenges, including needs to define ownership of technology outputs and to build technical capacity with community partners, also emerged from our analysis. Finally, we created several principles that extended an existing CBPR framework to specifically address health informatics research requirements. Conclusions Our cross-case analysis yielded valuable insights regarding CBPR implementation in health informatics research and identified valuable lessons useful for future CBPR-based research. The benefits of applying CBPR approaches can be significant, particularly in engaging populations that are typically underserved by health care and in designing patient-facing technology. PMID:26228766

The Use and Interpretation of Quasi-Experimental Studies in Medical Informatics

PubMed Central

Harris, Anthony D.; McGregor, Jessina C.; Perencevich, Eli N.; Furuno, Jon P.; Zhu, Jingkun; Peterson, Dan E.; Finkelstein, Joseph

2006-01-01

Quasi-experimental study designs, often described as nonrandomized, pre-post intervention studies, are common in the medical informatics literature. Yet little has been written about the benefits and limitations of the quasi-experimental approach as applied to informatics studies. This paper outlines a relative hierarchy and nomenclature of quasi-experimental study designs that is applicable to medical informatics intervention studies. In addition, the authors performed a systematic review of two medical informatics journals, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) and the International Journal of Medical Informatics (IJMI), to determine the number of quasi-experimental studies published and how the studies are classified on the above-mentioned relative hierarchy. They hope that future medical informatics studies will implement higher level quasi-experimental study designs that yield more convincing evidence for causal links between medical informatics interventions and outcomes. PMID:16221933

Core Content for the Subspecialty of Clinical Informatics

PubMed Central

Gardner, Reed M.; Overhage, J. Marc; Steen, Elaine B.; Munger, Benson S.; Holmes, John H.; Williamson, Jeffrey J.; Detmer, Don E.

2009-01-01

The Core Content for Clinical Informatics defines the boundaries of the discipline and informs the Program Requirements for Fellowship Education in Clinical Informatics. The Core Content includes four major categories: fundamentals, clinical decision making and care process improvement, health information systems, and leadership and management of change. The AMIA Board of Directors approved the Core Content for Clinical Informatics in November 2008. PMID:19074296

Informatics Education in Italian Secondary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bellettini, Carlo; Lonati, Violetta; Malchiodi, Dario; Monga, Mattia; Morpurgo, Anna; Torelli, Mauro; Zecca, Luisa

2014-01-01

This article describes the state of informatics education in the Italian secondary schools, highlighting how the learning objectives set up by the Ministry of Education are difficult to meet, due to the fact that the subject is often taught by teachers not holding an informatics degree, the lack of suitable teaching material and the expectations…

Climate Informatics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Monteleoni, Claire; Schmidt, Gavin A.; Alexander, Francis J.; Niculescu-Mizil, Alexandru; Steinhaeuser, Karsten; Tippett, Michael; Banerjee, Arindam; Blumenthal, M. Benno; Ganguly, Auroop R.; Smerdon, Jason E.;

Tools and Methods for Teaching Informatics at School: An Advanced Logo Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nikolov, Rumen

1992-01-01

Describes a course in educational informatics for preservice teachers and students in educational software development that emphasizes the use of LOGO, and summarizes course modules that cover tools and methods for teaching informatics, informatics curriculum design, introducing the basic notions of informatics, integrating informatics into the…

Medical Informatics in Academic Health Science Centers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frisse, Mark E.

1992-01-01

An analysis of the state of medical informatics, the application of computer and information technology to biomedicine, looks at trends and concerns, including integration of traditionally distinct enterprises (clinical information systems, financial information, scholarly support activities, infrastructures); informatics career choice and…

The Biodiversity Informatics Potential Index

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Biodiversity informatics is a relatively new discipline extending computer science in the context of biodiversity data, and its development to date has not been uniform throughout the world. Digitizing effort and capacity building are costly, and ways should be found to prioritize them rationally. The proposed 'Biodiversity Informatics Potential (BIP) Index' seeks to fulfill such a prioritization role. We propose that the potential for biodiversity informatics be assessed through three concepts: (a) the intrinsic biodiversity potential (the biological richness or ecological diversity) of a country; (b) the capacity of the country to generate biodiversity data records; and (c) the availability of technical infrastructure in a country for managing and publishing such records. Methods Broadly, the techniques used to construct the BIP Index were rank correlation, multiple regression analysis, principal components analysis and optimization by linear programming. We built the BIP Index by finding a parsimonious set of country-level human, economic and environmental variables that best predicted the availability of primary biodiversity data accessible through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) network, and constructing an optimized model with these variables. The model was then applied to all countries for which sufficient data existed, to obtain a score for each country. Countries were ranked according to that score. Results Many of the current GBIF participants ranked highly in the BIP Index, although some of them seemed not to have realized their biodiversity informatics potential. The BIP Index attributed low ranking to most non-participant countries; however, a few of them scored highly, suggesting that these would be high-return new participants if encouraged to contribute towards the GBIF mission of free and open access to biodiversity data. Conclusions The BIP Index could potentially help in (a) identifying countries most likely to

Knowledge management and informatics considerations for comparative effectiveness research: a case-driven exploration.

PubMed

Embi, Peter J; Hebert, Courtney; Gordillo, Gayle; Kelleher, Kelly; Payne, Philip R O

2013-08-01

As clinical data are increasingly collected and stored electronically, their potential use for comparative effectiveness research (CER) grows. Despite this promise, challenges face those wishing to leverage such data. In this paper we aim to enumerate some of the knowledge management and informatics issues common to such data reuse. After reviewing the current state of knowledge regarding biomedical informatics challenges and best practices related to CER, we then present 2 research projects at our institution. We analyze these and highlight several common themes and challenges related to the conduct of CER studies. Finally, we represent these emergent themes. The informatics challenges commonly encountered by those conducting CER studies include issues related to data information and knowledge management (eg, data reuse, data preparation) as well as those related to people and organizational issues (eg, sociotechnical factors and organizational factors). Examples of these are described in further detail and a formal framework for describing these findings is presented. Significant challenges face researchers attempting to use often diverse and heterogeneous datasets for CER. These challenges must be understood in order to be dealt with successfully and can often be overcome with the appropriate use of informatics best practices. Many research and policy questions remain to be answered in order to realize the full potential of the increasingly electronic clinical data available for such research.

Pathology informatics fellowship retreats: The use of interactive scenarios and case studies as pathology informatics teaching tools.

PubMed

Lee, Roy E; McClintock, David S; Balis, Ulysses J; Baron, Jason M; Becich, Michael J; Beckwith, Bruce A; Brodsky, Victor B; Carter, Alexis B; Dighe, Anand S; Haghighi, Mehrvash; Hipp, Jason D; Henricks, Walter H; Kim, Jiyeon Y; Klepseis, Veronica E; Kuo, Frank C; Lane, William J; Levy, Bruce P; Onozato, Maristela L; Park, Seung L; Sinard, John H; Tuthill, Mark J; Gilbertson, John R

2012-01-01

Last year, our pathology informatics fellowship added informatics-based interactive case studies to its existing educational platform of operational and research rotations, clinical conferences, a common core curriculum with an accompanying didactic course, and national meetings. The structure of the informatics case studies was based on the traditional business school case study format. Three different formats were used, varying in length from short, 15-minute scenarios to more formal multiple hour-long case studies. Case studies were presented over the course of three retreats (Fall 2011, Winter 2012, and Spring 2012) and involved both local and visiting faculty and fellows. Both faculty and fellows found the case studies and the retreats educational, valuable, and enjoyable. From this positive feedback, we plan to incorporate the retreats in future academic years as an educational component of our fellowship program. Interactive case studies appear to be valuable in teaching several aspects of pathology informatics that are difficult to teach in more traditional venues (rotations and didactic class sessions). Case studies have become an important component of our fellowship's educational platform.

Modeling & Informatics at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated: our philosophy for sustained impact

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McGaughey, Georgia; Patrick Walters, W.

2017-03-01

Molecular modelers and informaticians have the unique opportunity to integrate cross-functional data using a myriad of tools, methods and visuals to generate information. Using their drug discovery expertise, information is transformed to knowledge that impacts drug discovery. These insights are often times formulated locally and then applied more broadly, which influence the discovery of new medicines. This is particularly true in an organization where the members are exposed to projects throughout an organization, such as in the case of the global Modeling & Informatics group at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. From its inception, Vertex has been a leader in the development and use of computational methods for drug discovery. In this paper, we describe the Modeling & Informatics group at Vertex and the underlying philosophy, which has driven this team to sustain impact on the discovery of first-in-class transformative medicines.

Informatics for Metabolomics.

PubMed

Kusonmano, Kanthida; Vongsangnak, Wanwipa; Chumnanpuen, Pramote

2016-01-01

Metabolome profiling of biological systems has the powerful ability to provide the biological understanding of their metabolic functional states responding to the environmental factors or other perturbations. Tons of accumulative metabolomics data have thus been established since pre-metabolomics era. This is directly influenced by the high-throughput analytical techniques, especially mass spectrometry (MS)- and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based techniques. Continuously, the significant numbers of informatics techniques for data processing, statistical analysis, and data mining have been developed. The following tools and databases are advanced for the metabolomics society which provide the useful metabolomics information, e.g., the chemical structures, mass spectrum patterns for peak identification, metabolite profiles, biological functions, dynamic metabolite changes, and biochemical transformations of thousands of small molecules. In this chapter, we aim to introduce overall metabolomics studies from pre- to post-metabolomics era and their impact on society. Directing on post-metabolomics era, we provide a conceptual framework of informatics techniques for metabolomics and show useful examples of techniques, tools, and databases for metabolomics data analysis starting from preprocessing toward functional interpretation. Throughout the framework of informatics techniques for metabolomics provided, it can be further used as a scaffold for translational biomedical research which can thus lead to reveal new metabolite biomarkers, potential metabolic targets, or key metabolic pathways for future disease therapy.

The history of pathology informatics: A global perspective

PubMed Central

Park, Seung; Parwani, Anil V.; Aller, Raymond D.; Banach, Lech; Becich, Michael J.; Borkenfeld, Stephan; Carter, Alexis B.; Friedman, Bruce A.; Rojo, Marcial Garcia; Georgiou, Andrew; Kayser, Gian; Kayser, Klaus; Legg, Michael; Naugler, Christopher; Sawai, Takashi; Weiner, Hal; Winsten, Dennis; Pantanowitz, Liron

2013-01-01

Pathology informatics has evolved to varying levels around the world. The history of pathology informatics in different countries is a tale with many dimensions. At first glance, it is the familiar story of individuals solving problems that arise in their clinical practice to enhance efficiency, better manage (e.g., digitize) laboratory information, as well as exploit emerging information technologies. Under the surface, however, lie powerful resource, regulatory, and societal forces that helped shape our discipline into what it is today. In this monograph, for the first time in the history of our discipline, we collectively perform a global review of the field of pathology informatics. In doing so, we illustrate how general far-reaching trends such as the advent of computers, the Internet and digital imaging have affected pathology informatics in the world at large. Major drivers in the field included the need for pathologists to comply with national standards for health information technology and telepathology applications to meet the scarcity of pathology services and trained people in certain countries. Following trials by a multitude of investigators, not all of them successful, it is apparent that innovation alone did not assure the success of many informatics tools and solutions. Common, ongoing barriers to the widespread adoption of informatics devices include poor information technology infrastructure in undeveloped areas, the cost of technology, and regulatory issues. This review offers a deeper understanding of how pathology informatics historically developed and provides insights into what the promising future might hold. PMID:23869286

A survey of informatics platforms that enable distributed comparative effectiveness research using multi-institutional heterogeneous clinical data

PubMed Central

Sittig, Dean F.; Hazlehurst, Brian L.; Brown, Jeffrey; Murphy, Shawn; Rosenman, Marc; Tarczy-Hornoch, Peter; Wilcox, Adam B.

2012-01-01

Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) has the potential to transform the current healthcare delivery system by identifying the most effective medical and surgical treatments, diagnostic tests, disease prevention methods and ways to deliver care for specific clinical conditions. To be successful, such research requires the identification, capture, aggregation, integration, and analysis of disparate data sources held by different institutions with diverse representations of the relevant clinical events. In an effort to address these diverse demands, there have been multiple new designs and implementations of informatics platforms that provide access to electronic clinical data and the governance infrastructure required for inter-institutional CER. The goal of this manuscript is to help investigators understand why these informatics platforms are required and to compare and contrast six, large-scale, recently funded, CER-focused informatics platform development efforts. We utilized an 8-dimension, socio-technical model of health information technology use to help guide our work. We identified six generic steps that are necessary in any distributed, multi-institutional CER project: data identification, extraction, modeling, aggregation, analysis, and dissemination. We expect that over the next several years these projects will provide answers to many important, and heretofore unanswerable, clinical research questions. PMID:22692259

Four "E"pochs: The Story of Informatization.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duff, Alistair S.

2003-01-01

Informatization is a term of Japanese provenance denoting major systemic change from the application of information technology. Proposes a theory of post-war informatization focusing on information services in libraries, specifically computerized information retrieval. Describes four electronic epochs: offline, online, CD-ROM, and Internet, and…

Building the informatics infrastructure for comparative effectiveness research (CER): a review of the literature.

PubMed

Lopez, Marianne Hamilton; Holve, Erin; Sarkar, Indra Neil; Segal, Courtney

2012-07-01

Technological advances in clinical informatics have made large amounts of data accessible and potentially useful for research. As a result, a burgeoning literature addresses efforts to bridge the fields of health services research and biomedical informatics. The Electronic Data Methods Forum review examines peer-reviewed literature at the intersection of comparative effectiveness research and clinical informatics. The authors are specifically interested in characterizing this literature and identifying cross-cutting themes and gaps in the literature. A 3-step systematic literature search was conducted, including a structured search of PubMed, manual reviews of articles from selected publication lists, and manual reviews of research activities based on prospective electronic clinical data. Two thousand four hundred thirty-five citations were identified as potentially relevant. Ultimately, a full-text review was performed for 147 peer-reviewed papers. One hundred thirty-two articles were selected for inclusion in the review. Of these, 88 articles are the focus of the discussion in this paper. Three types of articles were identified, including papers that: (1) provide historical context or frameworks for using clinical informatics for research, (2) describe platforms and projects, and (3) discuss issues, challenges, and applications of natural language processing. In addition, 2 cross-cutting themes emerged: the challenges of conducting research in the absence of standardized ontologies and data collection; and unique data governance concerns related to the transfer, storage, deidentification, and access to electronic clinical data. Finally, the authors identified several current gaps on important topics such as the use of clinical informatics for cohort identification, cloud computing, and single point access to research data.

Legal issues in medical informatics: a bird's eye view.

PubMed

Laske, C

1996-01-01

The present paper is the result of a study investigating the legal issues, problems and obstacles which have arisen as a result of the R&D projects financed by the AIM Program 1991-94. Two parallel lines of investigation were adopted in this study. First of all, a questionnaire was sent to all project partners listed in the AIM 93 Report, with the objective of collecting information on the legal questions with which the individual projects were confronted in the course of their R&D work. This allowed for an initial mapping out of the legal aspects relevant in the field of medical informatics. Secondly, the actual projects were studied as to their legal content and in particular those which included a legal workpackage. This allowed for an assessment of further legal questions, some of which had as yet perhaps not been perceived as such. The present paper deals with five key aspects, describing the nature of the issues and the relevant law and case law or legal vacuum as it may be. It must be emphasised that, as pointed out in the title, this study offers an overview of the legal issues debate in medical informatics and is somewhat exploratory in nature. It is not intended to offer a critical analysis of existing picces of legislation or case law. This would call for more fundamental legal research. Instead the study restricts itself to a general description of existing legal principles and their relevance in the health care sector. As the reader will gather from this paper, legally speaking information technology is still a relatively new entity in the health care sector, which means that legal research and any resulting recommendations may have a real impact on the future course of the law in this field.

Informatics Essentials for DNPs.

PubMed

Jenkins, Melinda L

2018-01-01

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs are proliferating around the US as advanced practice nursing programs evolve to build capacity by adding content on professional leadership, policy, and quality improvement to the traditional clinical content. One of the eight "Essentials" for DNP education is "Information systems/technology and patient care technology for the improvement and transformation of health care."[1] A required graduate course was revised and updated in 2017 to provide a foundation in clinical informatics for DNPs, as well as for nursing informatics specialists. Components of the online course, assignments, and free online resources linked to the DNP Essentials are described in this paper.

Information science for the future: an innovative nursing informatics curriculum.

PubMed

Travis, L; Flatley Brennan, P

1998-04-01

Health care is increasingly driven by information, and consequently, patient care will demand effective management of information. The report of the Priority Expert Panel E: Nursing Informatics and Enhancing Clinical Care Through Nursing Informatics challenges faculty to produce baccalaureate graduates who use information technologies to improve the patient care process and change health care. The challenge is to construct an evolving nursing informatics curriculum to provide nursing professionals with the foundation for affecting health care delivery. This article discusses the design, implementation, and evaluation of an innovative nursing informatics curriculum incorporated into a baccalaureate nursing program. The basic components of the curriculum framework are information, technology, and clinical care process. The presented integrated curriculum is effective in familiarizing students with informatics and encouraging them to think critically about using informatics in practice. The two groups of students who completed the four-course sequence will be discussed.

Disease model curation improvements at Mouse Genome Informatics

PubMed Central

Bello, Susan M.; Richardson, Joel E.; Davis, Allan P.; Wiegers, Thomas C.; Mattingly, Carolyn J.; Dolan, Mary E.; Smith, Cynthia L.; Blake, Judith A.; Eppig, Janan T.

2012-01-01

Optimal curation of human diseases requires an ontology or structured vocabulary that contains terms familiar to end users, is robust enough to support multiple levels of annotation granularity, is limited to disease terms and is stable enough to avoid extensive reannotation following updates. At Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI), we currently use disease terms from Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) to curate mouse models of human disease. While OMIM provides highly detailed disease records that are familiar to many in the medical community, it lacks structure to support multilevel annotation. To improve disease annotation at MGI, we evaluated the merged Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and OMIM disease vocabulary created by the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD) project. Overlaying MeSH onto OMIM provides hierarchical access to broad disease terms, a feature missing from the OMIM. We created an extended version of the vocabulary to meet the genetic disease-specific curation needs at MGI. Here we describe our evaluation of the CTD application, the extensions made by MGI and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. Database URL: http://www.informatics.jax.org/ PMID:22434831

Informatics, evidence-based care, and research; implications for national policy: a report of an American Medical Informatics Association health policy conference.

PubMed

Bloomrosen, Meryl; Detmer, Don E

2010-01-01

There is an increased level of activity in the biomedical and health informatics world (e-prescribing, electronic health records, personal health records) that, in the near future, will yield a wealth of available data that we can exploit meaningfully to strengthen knowledge building and evidence creation, and ultimately improve clinical and preventive care. The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2008 Health Policy Conference was convened to focus and propel discussions about informatics-enabled evidence-based care, clinical research, and knowledge management. Conference participants explored the potential of informatics tools and technologies to improve the evidence base on which providers and patients can draw to diagnose and treat health problems. The paper presents a model of an evidence continuum that is dynamic, collaborative, and powered by health informatics technologies. The conference's findings are described, and recommendations on terminology harmonization, facilitation of the evidence continuum in a "wired" world, development and dissemination of clinical practice guidelines and other knowledge support strategies, and the role of diverse stakeholders in the generation and adoption of evidence are presented.

Introduction to Metagenomics at DOE JGI: Program Overview and Program Informatics (Metagenomics Informatics Challenges Workshop: 10K Genomes at a Time)

ScienceCinema

Tringe, Susannah

2018-01-15

Susannah Tringe of the DOE Joint Genome Institute talks about the Program Overview and Program Informatics at the Metagenomics Informatics Challenges Workshop held at the DOE JGI on October 12-13, 2011.

Clinical Research Informatics: Supporting the Research Study Lifecycle.

PubMed

Johnson, S B

2017-08-01

Objectives: The primary goal of this review is to summarize significant developments in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) over the years 2015-2016. The secondary goal is to contribute to a deeper understanding of CRI as a field, through the development of a strategy for searching and classifying CRI publications. Methods: A search strategy was developed to query the PubMed database, using medical subject headings to both select and exclude articles, and filtering publications by date and other characteristics. A manual review classified publications using stages in the "research study lifecycle", with key stages that include study definition, participant enrollment, data management, data analysis, and results dissemination. Results: The search strategy generated 510 publications. The manual classification identified 125 publications as relevant to CRI, which were classified into seven different stages of the research lifecycle, and one additional class that pertained to multiple stages, referring to general infrastructure or standards. Important cross-cutting themes included new applications of electronic media (Internet, social media, mobile devices), standardization of data and procedures, and increased automation through the use of data mining and big data methods. Conclusions: The review revealed increased interest and support for CRI in large-scale projects across institutions, regionally, nationally, and internationally. A search strategy based on medical subject headings can find many relevant papers, but a large number of non-relevant papers need to be detected using text words which pertain to closely related fields such as computational statistics and clinical informatics. The research lifecycle was useful as a classification scheme by highlighting the relevance to the users of clinical research informatics solutions. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

A National Agenda for Public Health Informatics

PubMed Central

Yasnoff, William A.; Overhage, J. Marc; Humphreys, Betsy L.; LaVenture, Martin

2001-01-01

The AMIA 2001 Spring Congress brought together members of the the public health and informatics communities to develop a national agenda for public health informatics. Discussions of funding and governance; architecture and infrastructure; standards and vocabulary; research, evaluation, and best practices; privacy, confidentiality, and security; and training and workforce resulted in 74 recommendations with two key themes—that all stakeholders need to be engaged in coordinated activities related to public health information architecture, standards, confidentiality, best practices, and research; and that informatics training is needed throughout the public health workforce. Implementation of this consensus agenda will help promote progress in the application of information technology to improve public health. PMID:11687561

Combining medical informatics and bioinformatics toward tools for personalized medicine.

PubMed

Sarachan, B D; Simmons, M K; Subramanian, P; Temkin, J M

2003-01-01

Key bioinformatics and medical informatics research areas need to be identified to advance knowledge and understanding of disease risk factors and molecular disease pathology in the 21 st century toward new diagnoses, prognoses, and treatments. Three high-impact informatics areas are identified: predictive medicine (to identify significant correlations within clinical data using statistical and artificial intelligence methods), along with pathway informatics and cellular simulations (that combine biological knowledge with advanced informatics to elucidate molecular disease pathology). Initial predictive models have been developed for a pilot study in Huntington's disease. An initial bioinformatics platform has been developed for the reconstruction and analysis of pathways, and work has begun on pathway simulation. A bioinformatics research program has been established at GE Global Research Center as an important technology toward next generation medical diagnostics. We anticipate that 21 st century medical research will be a combination of informatics tools with traditional biology wet lab research, and that this will translate to increased use of informatics techniques in the clinic.

Biomedical informatics advancing the national health agenda: the AMIA 2015 year-in-review in clinical and consumer informatics.

PubMed

Roberts, Kirk; Boland, Mary Regina; Pruinelli, Lisiane; Dcruz, Jina; Berry, Andrew; Georgsson, Mattias; Hazen, Rebecca; Sarmiento, Raymond F; Backonja, Uba; Yu, Kun-Hsing; Jiang, Yun; Brennan, Patricia Flatley

2017-04-01

The field of biomedical informatics experienced a productive 2015 in terms of research. In order to highlight the accomplishments of that research, elicit trends, and identify shortcomings at a macro level, a 19-person team conducted an extensive review of the literature in clinical and consumer informatics. The result of this process included a year-in-review presentation at the American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium and a written report (see supplemental data). Key findings are detailed in the report and summarized here. This article organizes the clinical and consumer health informatics research from 2015 under 3 themes: the electronic health record (EHR), the learning health system (LHS), and consumer engagement. Key findings include the following: (1) There are significant advances in establishing policies for EHR feature implementation, but increased interoperability is necessary for these to gain traction. (2) Decision support systems improve practice behaviors, but evidence of their impact on clinical outcomes is still lacking. (3) Progress in natural language processing (NLP) suggests that we are approaching but have not yet achieved truly interactive NLP systems. (4) Prediction models are becoming more robust but remain hampered by the lack of interoperable clinical data records. (5) Consumers can and will use mobile applications for improved engagement, yet EHR integration remains elusive. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Skills and knowledge of informatics, and training needs of hospital pharmacists in Thailand: A self-assessment survey.

PubMed

Chonsilapawit, Teeraporn; Rungpragayphan, Suang

2016-10-01

Because hospital pharmacists have to deal with large amounts of health information and advanced information technology in practice, they must possess adequate skills and knowledge of informatics to operate efficiently. However, most current pharmacy curricula in Thailand barely address the principles and skills concerned with informatics, and Thai pharmacists usually acquire computer literacy and informatics skills through personal-interest training and self-study. In this study, we aimed to assess the skills and knowledge of informatics and the training needs of hospital pharmacists in Thailand, in order to improve curricular and professional development. A self-assessment postal survey of 73 questions was developed and distributed to the pharmacy departments of 601 hospitals throughout the country. Practicing hospital pharmacists were requested to complete and return the survey voluntarily. Within the 3 months of the survey period, a total of 805 out of 2002 surveys were returned. On average, respondents rated themselves as competent or better in the skills of basic computer operation, the Internet, information management, and communication. Understandably, they rated themselves at novice level for information technology and database design knowledge/skills, and at advanced beginner level for project, risk, and change management skills. Respondents believed that skills and knowledge of informatics were highly necessary for their work, and definitely needed training. Thai hospital pharmacists were confident in using computers and the Internet. They realized and appreciated their lack of informatics knowledge and skills, and needed more training. Pharmacy curricula and training should be developed accordingly. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The rate commitment to ISO 214 standard among the persian abstracts of approved research projects at school of health management and medical informatics, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.

PubMed

Papi, Ahmad; Khalaji, Davoud; Rizi, Hasan Ashrafi; Shabani, Ahmad; Hassanzadeh, Akbar

2014-01-01

Commitment to abstracting standards has a very significant role in information retrieval. The present research aimed to evaluate the rate of Commitment to ISO 214 Standard among the Persian abstracts of approved research projects at School of Health Management and Medical Informatics, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. This descriptive study used a researcher-made checklist to collect data, which was then analyzed through content analysis. The studied population consisted of 227 approved research projects in the School of Health Management and Medical Informatics, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences during 2001-2010. The validity of the checklist was measured by face and content validity. Data was collected through direct observations. Statistical analyzes including descriptive (frequency distribution and percent) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test) were performed in SPSS-16. The highest and lowest commitment rates to ISO 214 standard were in using third person pronouns (100%) and using active verbs (34/4%), respectively. In addition, the highest commitment rates to ISO 214 standard (100%) related to mentioning third person pronouns, starting the abstract with a sentence to explain the subject of the research, abstract placement, and including keyword in 2009. On the other hand, during 2001-2003, the lowest commitment rate was observed in reporting research findings (16/7%). Moreover, various educational groups differed significantly only in commitment to study goals, providing research findings, and abstaining from using abbreviations, signs, and acronyms. Furthermore, educational level of the corresponding author was significantly related with extracting the keywords from the text. Other factors of ISO 214 standard did not have significant relations with the educational level of the corresponding author. In general, a desirable rate of commitment to ISO 214 standard was observed among the Persian abstracts of approved research

Establishing a national resource: a health informatics collection to maintain the legacy of health informatics development.

PubMed

Ellis, Beverley; Roberts, Jean; Cooper, Helen

2007-01-01

This case study report of the establishment of a national repository of multi-media materials describes the creation process, the challenges faced in putting it into operation and the opportunities for the future. The initial resource has been incorporated under standard library and knowledge management practices. A collaborative action research method was used with active experts in the domain to determine the requirements and priorities for further development. The National Health Informatics Collection (NatHIC) is now accessible and the further issues are being addressed by inclusion in future University and NHS strategic plans. Ultimately the Collection will link with other facilities that contribute to the description and maintenance of effective informatics in support of health globally. The issues raised about the National Health Informatics Collection as established in the UK have resonance with the challenges of capturing the overall historic development of an emerging discipline in any country.

Psychometric Properties of the Canadian Nurse Informatics Competency Assessment Scale.

PubMed

Kleib, Manal; Nagle, Lynn

2018-04-10

Assessment of nursing informatics competencies has gained momentum in the scholarly literature in response to the increased need for resources available to support informatics capacity in nursing. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure and internal consistency reliability of the Canadian Nurse Informatics Competency Assessment Scale, a newly developed 21-item measure based on published entry-to-practice informatics competencies for RNs. For this study, 2844 nurses completed the Canadian Nurse Informatics Competency Assessment Scale through a cross-sectional survey. Exploratory principal component analysis with oblique promax rotation revealed a four-component/factor structure for the 21-item Canadian Nurse Informatics Competency Assessment Scale, explaining 61.04% of the variance. Item loading per each component reflected the original Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing grouping of nursing informatics competency indicators, as per three key domains of competency: information and knowledge management (α = .85); professional and regulatory accountability (α = .81); and use of information and communication technology in the delivery of patient care (α = .87) with the exception of one item (Indicator 3), which loaded into the category of foundational information and communication technology skills (α = .81). This study provided preliminary evidence for the construct validity of the entry-to-practice competency domains and the factor structure and reliability of the Canadian Nurse Informatics Competency Assessment Scale among practicing nurses. Further testing among nurses in other settings and among nursing students is recommended.

Pharmacovigilance and Biomedical Informatics: A Model for Future Development.

PubMed

Beninger, Paul; Ibara, Michael A

2016-12-01

The discipline of pharmacovigilance is rooted in the aftermath of the thalidomide tragedy of 1961. It has evolved as a result of collaborative efforts by many individuals and organizations, including physicians, patients, Health Authorities, universities, industry, the World Health Organization, the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, and the International Conference on Harmonisation. Biomedical informatics is rooted in technologically based methodologies and has evolved at the speed of computer technology. The purpose of this review is to bring a novel lens to pharmacovigilance, looking at the evolution and development of the field of pharmacovigilance from the perspective of biomedical informatics, with the explicit goal of providing a foundation for discussion of the future direction of pharmacovigilance as a discipline. For this review, we searched [publication trend for the log 10 value of the numbers of publications identified in PubMed] using the key words [informatics (INF), pharmacovigilance (PV), phar-macovigilance þ informatics (PV þ INF)], for [study types] articles published between [1994-2015]. We manually searched the reference lists of identified articles for additional information. Biomedical informatics has made significant contributions to the infrastructural development of pharmacovigilance. However, there has not otherwise been a systematic assessment of the role of biomedical informatics in enhancing the field of pharmacovigilance, and there has been little cross-discipline scholarship. Rapidly developing innovations in biomedical informatics pose a challenge to pharmacovigilance in finding ways to include new sources of safety information, including social media, massively linked databases, and mobile and wearable wellness applications and sensors. With biomedical informatics as a lens, it is evident that certain aspects of pharmacovigilance are evolving more slowly. However, the high levels of mutual interest in

The Teaching of Informatics for Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sora, Sebastian A.

2008-01-01

Informatics is a branch of computer science that concerns itself, in actuality, with the use of information systems. The objective of this paper is to focus on the business curriculum for graduate students and their gaining proficiency in informatics so that they can understand the concept of information, the access of information, the use of…

Embedded librarian within an online health informatics graduate research course: a case study.

PubMed

Kumar, Sajeesh; Wu, Lin; Reynolds, Rebecca

2014-01-01

The Health Sciences Library and the Department of Health Informatics & Information Management at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis piloted an embedded librarian project in summer 2012. The value and effectiveness of the pilot project was evaluated by analyzing the content of e-mail questions received from the students and the students' answers to the pre- and post-class surveys. The project received positive feedback from the students and course faculty. Librarians collaborating with teaching faculty and interacting one-on-one with students in health information-intensive courses proved to be helpful for student learning.

Teaching Some Informatics Concepts Using Formal System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Sojung; Park, Seongbin

2014-01-01

There are many important issues in informatics and many agree that algorithms and programming are most important issues that need to be included in informatics education (Dagiene and Jevsikova, 2012). In this paper, we propose how some of these issues can be easily taught using the notion of a formal system which consists of axioms and inference…

Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics academy: Outcomes from 5 years of Immersing High-school Students into Informatics Research.

PubMed

King, Andrew J; Fisher, Arielle M; Becich, Michael J; Boone, David N

2017-01-01

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biomedical Informatics and Division of Pathology Informatics created a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) pipeline in 2011 dedicated to providing cutting-edge informatics research and career preparatory experiences to a diverse group of highly motivated high-school students. In this third editorial installment describing the program, we provide a brief overview of the pipeline, report on achievements of the past scholars, and present results from self-reported assessments by the 2015 cohort of scholars. The pipeline continues to expand with the 2015 addition of the innovation internship, and the introduction of a program in 2016 aimed at offering first-time research experiences to undergraduates who are underrepresented in pathology and biomedical informatics. Achievements of program scholars include authorship of journal articles, symposium and summit presentations, and attendance at top 25 universities. All of our alumni matriculated into higher education and 90% remain in STEM majors. The 2015 high-school program had ten participating scholars who self-reported gains in confidence in their research abilities and understanding of what it means to be a scientist.

Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics academy: Outcomes from 5 years of Immersing High-school Students into Informatics Research

PubMed Central

King, Andrew J.; Fisher, Arielle M.; Becich, Michael J.; Boone, David N.

2017-01-01

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biomedical Informatics and Division of Pathology Informatics created a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) pipeline in 2011 dedicated to providing cutting-edge informatics research and career preparatory experiences to a diverse group of highly motivated high-school students. In this third editorial installment describing the program, we provide a brief overview of the pipeline, report on achievements of the past scholars, and present results from self-reported assessments by the 2015 cohort of scholars. The pipeline continues to expand with the 2015 addition of the innovation internship, and the introduction of a program in 2016 aimed at offering first-time research experiences to undergraduates who are underrepresented in pathology and biomedical informatics. Achievements of program scholars include authorship of journal articles, symposium and summit presentations, and attendance at top 25 universities. All of our alumni matriculated into higher education and 90% remain in STEM majors. The 2015 high-school program had ten participating scholars who self-reported gains in confidence in their research abilities and understanding of what it means to be a scientist. PMID:28400991

Health Informatics for Development: a Three-pronged Strategy of Partnerships, Standards, and Mobile Health. Contribution of the IMIA Working Group on Health Informatics for Development.

PubMed

Marcelo, A; Adejumo, A; Luna, D

2011-01-01

Describe the issues surrounding health informatics in developing countries and the challenges faced by practitioners in building internal capacity. From these issues, the authors propose cost-effective strategies that can fast track health informatics development in these low to medium income countries (LMICs). The authors conducted a review of literature and consulted key opinion leaders who have experience with health informatics implementations around the world. Despite geographic and cultural differences, many LMICs share similar challenges and opportunities in developing health informatics. Partnerships, standards, and inter-operability are well known components of successful informatics programs. Establishing partnerships can be comprised of formal inter-institutional collaborations on training and research, collaborative open source software development, and effective use of social networking. Lacking legacy systems, LMICs can discuss standards and inter-operability more openly and have greater potential for success. Lastly, since cellphones are pervasive in developing countries, they can be leveraged as access points for delivering and documenting health services in remote under-served areas. Mobile health or mHealth gives LMICs a unique opportunity to leapfrog through most issues that have plagued health informatics in developed countries. By employing this proposed roadmap, LMICs can now develop capacity for health informatics using appropriate and cost-effective technologies.

Emerging medical informatics research trends detection based on MeSH terms.

PubMed

Lyu, Peng-Hui; Yao, Qiang; Mao, Jin; Zhang, Shi-Jing

2015-01-01

The aim of this study is to analyze the research trends of medical informatics over the last 12 years. A new method based on MeSH terms was proposed to identify emerging topics and trends of medical informatics research. Informetric methods and visualization technologies were applied to investigate research trends of medical informatics. The metric of perspective factor (PF) embedding MeSH terms was appropriately employed to assess the perspective quality for journals. The emerging MeSH terms have changed dramatically over the last 12 years, identifying two stages of medical informatics: the "medical imaging stage" and the "medical informatics stage". The focus of medical informatics has shifted from acquisition and storage of healthcare data by integrating computational, informational, cognitive and organizational sciences to semantic analysis for problem solving and clinical decision-making. About 30 core journals were determined by Bradford's Law in the last 3 years in this area. These journals, with high PF values, have relative high perspective quality and lead the trend of medical informatics.

The nursing informatics workforce: who are they and what do they do?

PubMed

Murphy, Judy

2011-01-01

Nursing informatics has evolved into an integral part of health care delivery and a differentiating factor in the selection, implementation, and evaluation of health IT that supports safe, high-quality, patient-centric care. New nursing informatics workforce data reveal changing dynamics in clinical experience, job responsibilities, applications, barriers to success, information, and compensation and benefits. In addition to the more traditional informatics nurse role, a new position has begun to emerge in the health care C-suite with the introduction of the chief nursing informatics officer (CNIO). The CNIO is the senior informatics nurse guiding the implementation and optimization of HIT systems for an organization. With their fused clinical and informatics background, informatics nurses and CNIOs are uniquely positioned to help with "meaningful use" initiatives which are so important to changing the face of health care in the United States.

Chapter 17: Bioimage Informatics for Systems Pharmacology

PubMed Central

Li, Fuhai; Yin, Zheng; Jin, Guangxu; Zhao, Hong; Wong, Stephen T. C.

2013-01-01

Recent advances in automated high-resolution fluorescence microscopy and robotic handling have made the systematic and cost effective study of diverse morphological changes within a large population of cells possible under a variety of perturbations, e.g., drugs, compounds, metal catalysts, RNA interference (RNAi). Cell population-based studies deviate from conventional microscopy studies on a few cells, and could provide stronger statistical power for drawing experimental observations and conclusions. However, it is challenging to manually extract and quantify phenotypic changes from the large amounts of complex image data generated. Thus, bioimage informatics approaches are needed to rapidly and objectively quantify and analyze the image data. This paper provides an overview of the bioimage informatics challenges and approaches in image-based studies for drug and target discovery. The concepts and capabilities of image-based screening are first illustrated by a few practical examples investigating different kinds of phenotypic changes caEditorsused by drugs, compounds, or RNAi. The bioimage analysis approaches, including object detection, segmentation, and tracking, are then described. Subsequently, the quantitative features, phenotype identification, and multidimensional profile analysis for profiling the effects of drugs and targets are summarized. Moreover, a number of publicly available software packages for bioimage informatics are listed for further reference. It is expected that this review will help readers, including those without bioimage informatics expertise, understand the capabilities, approaches, and tools of bioimage informatics and apply them to advance their own studies. PMID:23633943

Approaches to the construction of a medical informatics glossary and thesaurus.

PubMed

Rada, R; Ghaoui, C; Russell, J; Taylor, M

1993-01-01

In a project concerned with establishing a glossary and thesaurus for the medical informatics domain, various approaches to the task have been investigated. The developers take the view that a glossary should be a coherent system of terms, reflecting a coherent system of concepts that underlies a body of knowledge about a domain. A framework for the conceptual analysis of the concepts/terms underlying the domain has been developed. The emphasis of this framework is on how the concepts relate together. This work has given an important insight into how the practical task of establishing well-structured vocabularies for a field can be better achieved. An eclectic approach to term selection was adopted. Criteria for assessing what constitutes good definitions for concepts in a field were examined. Using all these approaches glossaries, thesauri and domain models of the medical informatics field are being developed. Another aspect of our work of particular interest is the development of attributed definitions from which inheritance patterns can be defined.

Improving Bridging from Informatics Practice to Theory.

PubMed

Lehmann, C U; Gundlapalli, A V

2015-01-01

In 1962, Methods of Information in Medicine ( MIM ) began to publish papers on the methodology and scientific fundamentals of organizing, representing, and analyzing data, information, and knowledge in biomedicine and health care. Considered a companion journal, Applied Clinical Informatics ( ACI ) was launched in 2009 with a mission to establish a platform that allows sharing of knowledge between clinical medicine and health IT specialists as well as to bridge gaps between visionary design and successful and pragmatic deployment of clinical information systems. Both journals are official journals of the International Medical Informatics Association. As a follow-up to prior work, we set out to explore congruencies and interdependencies in publications of ACI and MIM. The objectives were to describe the major topics discussed in articles published in ACI in 2014 and to determine if there was evidence that theory in 2014 MIM publications was informed by practice described in ACI publications in any year. We also set out to describe lessons learned in the context of bridging informatics practice and theory and offer opinions on how ACI editorial policies could evolve to foster and improve such bridging. We conducted a retrospective observational study and reviewed all articles published in ACI during the calendar year 2014 (Volume 5) for their main theme, conclusions, and key words. We then reviewed the citations of all MIM papers from 2014 to determine if there were references to ACI articles from any year. Lessons learned in the context of bridging informatics practice and theory and opinions on ACI editorial policies were developed by consensus among the two authors. A total of 70 articles were published in ACI in 2014. Clinical decision support, clinical documentation, usability, Meaningful Use, health information exchange, patient portals, and clinical research informatics emerged as major themes. Only one MIM article from 2014 cited an ACI article. There

The pathology informatics curriculum wiki: Harnessing the power of user-generated content.

PubMed

Kim, Ji Yeon; Gudewicz, Thomas M; Dighe, Anand S; Gilbertson, John R

2010-07-13

The need for informatics training as part of pathology training has never been so critical, but pathology informatics is a wide and complex field and very few programs currently have the resources to provide comprehensive educational pathology informatics experiences to their residents. In this article, we present the "pathology informatics curriculum wiki", an open, on-line wiki that indexes the pathology informatics content in a larger public wiki, Wikipedia, (and other online content) and organizes it into educational modules based on the 2003 standard curriculum approved by the Association for Pathology Informatics (API). In addition to implementing the curriculum wiki at http://pathinformatics.wikispaces.com, we have evaluated pathology informatics content in Wikipedia. Of the 199 non-duplicate terms in the API curriculum, 90% have at least one associated Wikipedia article. Furthermore, evaluation of articles on a five-point Likert scale showed high scores for comprehensiveness (4.05), quality (4.08), currency (4.18), and utility for the beginner (3.85) and advanced (3.93) learners. These results are compelling and support the thesis that Wikipedia articles can be used as the foundation for a basic curriculum in pathology informatics. The pathology informatics community now has the infrastructure needed to collaboratively and openly create, maintain and distribute the pathology informatics content worldwide (Wikipedia) and also the environment (the curriculum wiki) to draw upon its own resources to index and organize this content as a sustainable basic pathology informatics educational resource. The remaining challenges are numerous, but largest by far will be to convince the pathologists to take the time and effort required to build pathology informatics content in Wikipedia and to index and organize this content for education in the curriculum wiki.

The pathology informatics curriculum wiki: Harnessing the power of user-generated content

PubMed Central

Kim, Ji Yeon; Gudewicz, Thomas M.; Dighe, Anand S.; Gilbertson, John R.

2010-01-01

Background: The need for informatics training as part of pathology training has never been so critical, but pathology informatics is a wide and complex field and very few programs currently have the resources to provide comprehensive educational pathology informatics experiences to their residents. In this article, we present the “pathology informatics curriculum wiki”, an open, on-line wiki that indexes the pathology informatics content in a larger public wiki, Wikipedia, (and other online content) and organizes it into educational modules based on the 2003 standard curriculum approved by the Association for Pathology Informatics (API). Methods and Results: In addition to implementing the curriculum wiki at http://pathinformatics.wikispaces.com, we have evaluated pathology informatics content in Wikipedia. Of the 199 non-duplicate terms in the API curriculum, 90% have at least one associated Wikipedia article. Furthermore, evaluation of articles on a five-point Likert scale showed high scores for comprehensiveness (4.05), quality (4.08), currency (4.18), and utility for the beginner (3.85) and advanced (3.93) learners. These results are compelling and support the thesis that Wikipedia articles can be used as the foundation for a basic curriculum in pathology informatics. Conclusions: The pathology informatics community now has the infrastructure needed to collaboratively and openly create, maintain and distribute the pathology informatics content worldwide (Wikipedia) and also the environment (the curriculum wiki) to draw upon its own resources to index and organize this content as a sustainable basic pathology informatics educational resource. The remaining challenges are numerous, but largest by far will be to convince the pathologists to take the time and effort required to build pathology informatics content in Wikipedia and to index and organize this content for education in the curriculum wiki. PMID:20805963

Building a Culture of Health Informatics Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A New Frontier.

PubMed

Househ, Mowafa; Alshammari, Riyad; Almutairi, Mariam; Jamal, Amr; Alshoaib, Saleh

2015-01-01

Entrepreneurship and innovation within the health informatics (HI) scientific community are relatively sluggish when compared to other disciplines such as computer science and engineering. Healthcare in general, and specifically, the health informatics scientific community needs to embrace more innovative and entrepreneurial practices. In this paper, we explore the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship as they apply to the health informatics scientific community. We also outline several strategies to improve the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within the health informatics scientific community such as: (I) incorporating innovation and entrepreneurship in health informatics education; (II) creating strong linkages with industry and healthcare organizations; (III) supporting national health innovation and entrepreneurship competitions; (IV) creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within healthcare organizations; (V) developing health informatics policies that support innovation and entrepreneurship based on internationally recognized standards; and (VI) develop an health informatics entrepreneurship ecosystem. With these changes, we conclude that embracing health innovation and entrepreneurship may be more readily accepted over the long-term within the health informatics scientific community.

IMIA Educational Recommendations and Nursing Informatics.

PubMed

Mantas, John; Hasman, Arie

2017-01-01

The updated version of the IMIA educational recommendations has given an adequate guidelines platform for developing educational programs in Biomedical and Health Informatics at all levels of education, vocational training, and distance learning. This chapter will provide a brief introduction of the recommendations pinpointing aspects for developing and assessing educational programs. We will provide a review of the existing feedback we have acquired during the IMIA site visits of accrediting educational programs at a worldwide level and discuss implementations issues. A brief overview of existing academic programs in Europe, North America and in other regions, especially for programs related to Nursing and to Nursing Informatics is provided. Finally, we will draw conclusions as how the IMIA recommendations may be required to be fitted into the specific needs of the Nursing Informatics and the needs of the Nursing professionals when they apply the recommendations to their academic and/or hospital/professional environments.

On Contributing to the Progress of Medical Informatics as Publisher.

PubMed

Haux, R; Geissbuhler, A; Holmes, J; Jaulent, M-C; Koch, S; Kulikowski, C A; Lehmann, C U; McCray, A T; Séroussi, B; Soualmia, L F; van Bemmel, J H

2017-08-01

May 1st, 2017, will mark Dieter Bergemann's 80th birthday. As Chief Executive Officer and Owner of Schattauer Publishers from 1983 to 2016, the biomedical and health informatics community owes him a great debt of gratitude. The past and present editors of Methods of Information in Medicine, the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics, and Applied Clinical Informatics want to honour and thank Dieter Bergemann by providing a brief biography that emphasizes his contributions, by reviewing his critical role as an exceptionally supportive publisher for Schattauer's three biomedical and health informatics periodicals, and by sharing some personal anecdotes. Over the past 40 years, Dieter Bergemann has been an influential, if behind-the-scenes, driving force in biomedical and health informatics publications, helping to ensure success in the dissemination of our field's research and practice. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

The Top 100 Articles in the Medical Informatics: a Bibliometric Analysis.

PubMed

Nadri, Hamed; Rahimi, Bahlol; Timpka, Toomas; Sedghi, Shahram

2017-08-19

The number of citations that a research paper receives can be used as a measure of its scientific impact. The objective of this study was to identify and to examine the characteristics of top 100 cited articles in the field of Medical Informatics based on data acquired from the Thomson Reuters' Web of Science (WOS) in October, 2016. The data was collected using two procedures: first we included articles published in the 24 journals listed in the "Medical Informatics" category; second, we retrieved articles using the key words: "informatics", "medical informatics", "biomedical informatics", "clinical informatics" and "health informatics". After removing duplicate records, articles were ranked by the number of citations they received. When the 100 top cited articles had been identified, we collected the following information for each record: all WOS database citations, year of publication, journal, author names, authors' affiliation, country of origin and topics indexed for each record. Citations for the top 100 articles ranged from 346 to 7875, and citations per year ranged from 11.12 to 525. The majority of articles were published in the 2000s (n=43) and 1990s (n=38). Articles were published across 10 journals, most commonly Statistics in medicine (n=71) and Medical decision making (n=28). The articles had an average of 2.47 authors. Statistics and biostatistics modeling was the most common topic (n=71), followed by artificial intelligence (n=12), and medical errors (n=3), other topics included data mining, diagnosis, bioinformatics, information retrieval, and medical imaging. Our bibliometric analysis illustrated a historical perspective on the progress of scientific research on Medical Informatics. Moreover, the findings of the current study provide an insight on the frequency of citations for top cited articles published in Medical Informatics as well as quality of the works, journals, and the trends steering Medical Informatics.

PearlTrees web-based interface for teaching informatics in the radiology residency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Licurse, Mindy Y.; Cook, Tessa S.

2014-03-01

Radiology and imaging informatics education have rapidly evolved over the past few decades. With the increasing recognition that future growth and maintenance of radiology practices will rely heavily on radiologists with fundamentally sound informatics skills, the onus falls on radiology residency programs to properly implement and execute an informatics curriculum. In addition, the American Board of Radiology may choose to include even more informatics on the new board examinations. However, the resources available for didactic teaching and guidance most especially at the introductory level are widespread and varied. Given the breadth of informatics, a centralized web-based interface designed to serve as an adjunct to standardized informatics curriculums as well as a stand-alone for other interested audiences is desirable. We present the development of a curriculum using PearlTrees, an existing web-interface based on the concept of a visual interest graph that allows users to collect, organize, and share any URL they find online as well as to upload photos and other documents. For our purpose, the group of "pearls" includes informatics concepts linked by appropriate hierarchal relationships. The curriculum was developed using a combination of our institution's current informatics fellowship curriculum, the Practical Imaging Informatics textbook1 and other useful online resources. After development of the initial interface and curriculum has been publicized, we anticipate that involvement by the informatics community will help promote collaborations and foster mentorships at all career levels.

Informatics and Standards for Nanomedicine Technology

PubMed Central

Thomas, Dennis G.; Klaessig, Fred; Harper, Stacey L.; Fritts, Martin; Hoover, Mark D.; Gaheen, Sharon; Stokes, Todd H.; Reznik-Zellen, Rebecca; Freund, Elaine T.; Klemm, Juli D.; Paik, David S.; Baker, Nathan A.

2011-01-01

There are several issues to be addressed concerning the management and effective use of information (or data), generated from nanotechnology studies in biomedical research and medicine. These data are large in volume, diverse in content, and are beset with gaps and ambiguities in the description and characterization of nanomaterials. In this work, we have reviewed three areas of nanomedicine informatics: information resources; taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and ontologies; and information standards. Informatics methods and standards in each of these areas are critical for enabling collaboration, data sharing, unambiguous representation and interpretation of data, semantic (meaningful) search and integration of data; and for ensuring data quality, reliability, and reproducibility. In particular, we have considered four types of information standards in this review, which are standard characterization protocols, common terminology standards, minimum information standards, and standard data communication (exchange) formats. Currently, due to gaps and ambiguities in the data, it is also difficult to apply computational methods and machine learning techniques to analyze, interpret and recognize patterns in data that are high dimensional in nature, and also to relate variations in nanomaterial properties to variations in their chemical composition, synthesis, characterization protocols, etc. Progress towards resolving the issues of information management in nanomedicine using informatics methods and standards discussed in this review will be essential to the rapidly growing field of nanomedicine informatics. PMID:21721140

Teaching Media Design by Using Scrum. A Qualitative Study within a Media Informatics Elective Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herrmann, Ines; Münster, Sander; Tietz, Vincent; Uhlemann, Rainer

2017-01-01

Cross-disciplinary skills are today's key skills for media informatics students to gain employment after graduation. However, such problem-based learning projects almost never take place due to organizational struggles. The authors suggest Scrum, a framework that is increasingly used in software engineering, as a solution for the challenges. Scrum…

Health Informatics 3.0 and other increasingly dispersed technologies require even greater trust: promoting safe evidence-based health informatics. Contribution of the IMIA Working Group on Technology Assessment & Quality Development in Health Informatics.

PubMed

Rigby, M; Ammenwerth, E; Talmon, J; Nykänen, P; Brender, J; de Keizer, N

2011-01-01

Health informatics is generally less committed to a scientific evidence-based approach than any other area of health science, which is an unsound position. Introducing the new Web 3.0 paradigms into health IT applications can unleash a further great potential, able to integrate and distribute data from multiple sources. The counter side is that it makes the user and the patient evermore dependent on the 'black box' of the system, and the re-use of the data remote from the author and initial context. Thus anticipatory consideration of uses, and proactive analysis of evidence of effects, are imperative, as only when a clinical technology can be proven to be trustworthy and safe should it be implemented widely - as is the case with other health technologies. To argue for promoting evidence-based health informatics as systems become more powerful and pro-active yet more dispersed and remote; and evaluation as the means of generating the necessary scientific evidence base. To present ongoing IMIA and EFMI initiatives in this field. Critical overview of recent developments in health informatics evaluation, alongside the precedents of other health technologies, summarising current initiatives and the new challenges presented by Health Informatics 3.0. Web 3.0 should be taken as an opportunity to move health informatics from being largely unaccountable to one of being an ethical and responsible science-based domain. Recent and planned activities of the EFMI and IMIA working groups have significantly progressed key initiatives. Concurrent with the emergence of Web 3.0 as a means of new-generation diffuse health information systems comes an increasing need for an evidence-based culture in health informatics.

Outcomes management of mechanically ventilated patients: utilizing informatics technology.

PubMed

Smith, K R

1998-11-01

This article examines an informatics system developed for outcomes management of the mechanically ventilated adult population, focusing on weaning the patient from mechanical ventilation. The link between medical informatics and outcomes management is discussed, along with the development of methods, tools, and data sets for outcomes management of the mechanically ventilated adult population at an acute care academic institution. Pros and cons of this system are identified, and specific areas for improvement of future health care outcomes medical informatics systems are discussed.

Earth Science Informatics Comes of Age

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jodha, Siri; Khalsa, S.; Ramachandran, Rahul

2014-01-01

The volume and complexity of Earth science data have steadily increased, placing ever-greater demands on researchers, software developers and data managers tasked with handling such data. Additional demands arise from requirements being levied by funding agencies and governments to better manage, preserve and provide open access to data. Fortunately, over the past 10-15 years significant advances in information technology, such as increased processing power, advanced programming languages, more sophisticated and practical standards, and near-ubiquitous internet access have made the jobs of those acquiring, processing, distributing and archiving data easier. These advances have also led to an increasing number of individuals entering the field of informatics as it applies to Geoscience and Remote Sensing. Informatics is the science and technology of applying computers and computational methods to the systematic analysis, management, interchange, and representation of data, information, and knowledge. Informatics also encompasses the use of computers and computational methods to support decisionmaking and other applications for societal benefits.

Contemporary Issues in Medicine--Medical Informatics and Population Health: Report II of the Medical School Objectives Project.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Academic Medicine, 1999

1999-01-01

The report of the Association of American Medical Colleges' Medical School Objectives Program presents the work of two expert panels. One, on medical informatics, identified five important physician roles: lifelong learner, clinician, educator, researcher, and manager. Another panel established a definition for "population health…

Enhancing "Mathematics for Informatics" and its Correlation with Student Pass Rates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Divjak, B.; Erjavec, Z.

2008-01-01

In this article, changes in "Mathematics for Informatics" at the Faculty of Organisation and Informatics in the University of Zagreb are described, and correlated with students pass rates. Students at the Faculty work in an interdisciplinary field, studying Informatics within a business context. The main reason for introducing the…

The Recurrence Relations in Teaching Students of Informatics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bakoev, Valentin P.

2010-01-01

The topic "Recurrence relations" and its place in teaching students of Informatics is discussed in this paper. We represent many arguments about the importance, the necessity and the benefit of studying this subject by Informatics students. They are based on investigation of some fundamental books and textbooks on Discrete Mathematics,…

The BioMedical Evidence Graph (BMEG) | Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)

Cancer.gov

The BMEG is a Cancer Data integration Platform that utilizes methods collected from DREAM challenges and applied to large datasets, such as the TCGA, and makes them avalible for analysis using a high performance graph database

Medical Informatics in Croatia – a Historical Survey

PubMed Central

Dezelic, Gjuro; Kern, Josipa; Petrovecki, Mladen; Ilakovac, Vesna; Hercigonja-Szekeres, Mira

2014-01-01

A historical survey of medical informatics (MI) in Croatia is presented from the beginnings in the late sixties of the 20th century to the present time. Described are MI projects, applications in clinical medicine and public health, start and development of MI research and education, beginnings of international cooperation, establishment of the Croatian Society for MI and its membership to EFMI and IMIA. The current status of computerization of the Croatian healthcare system is sketched as well as the present graduate and postgraduate study MI curricula. The information contained in the paper shows that MI in Croatia developed and still develops along with its advancement elsewhere. PMID:24648620

Advanced Extravehicular Mobility Unit Informatics Software Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wright, Theodore

2014-01-01

This is a description of the software design for the 2013 edition of the Advanced Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AEMU) Informatics computer assembly. The Informatics system is an optional part of the space suit assembly. It adds a graphical interface for displaying suit status, timelines, procedures, and caution and warning information. In the future it will display maps with GPS position data, and video and still images captured by the astronaut.

Nursing Informatics Training in Undergraduate Nursing Programs in Peru.

PubMed

Condor, Daniel F; Sanchez Alvarez, Katherine; Bidman, Austin A

2018-01-01

Nursing informatics training has been progressively developing as a field in Latin America, each country with diverse approaches to its implementation. In Peru, this process has not yet taken place, so it is necessary to determine how universities are performing in this regard. We conducted a search to describe if universities provide training in computer nursing or similar. There are 72 universities offering professional nursing training, with only 24% of these providing any specific course in nursing informatics. Training undergraduates in nursing informatics improves the skillset of licensed nurses.

Eco-informatics and natural resource management

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cushing, J.B.; Wilson, T.; Borning, A.; Delcambre, L.; Bowker, G.; Frame, M.; Schnase, J.; Sonntag, W.; Fulop, J.; Hert, C.; Hovy, E.; Jones, J.; Landis, E.; Schweik, C.; Brandt, L.; Gregg, V.; Spengler, S.

2006-01-01

This project highlight reports on the 2004 workshop [1], as well as follow-up activities in 2005 and 2006, regarding how informatics tools can help manage natural resources and decide policy. The workshop was sponsored jointly by sponsored by the NSF, NBII, NASA, and EPA, and attended by practitioners from government and non-government agencies, and university researchers from the computer, social, and ecological sciences. The workshop presented the significant information technology (IT) problems that resource managers face when integrating ecological or environmental information to make decisions. These IT problems fall into five categories: data presentation, data gaps, tools, indicators, and policy making and implementation. To alleviate such problems, we recommend informatics research in four IT areas, as defined in this abstract and our final report: modeling and simulation, data quality, information integration and ontologies, and social and human aspects. Additionally, we recommend that funding agencies provide infrastructure and some changes in funding habits to assure cycles of innovation in the domain were addressed. Follow-on activities to the workshop subsequent to dg.o 2005 included: an invited talk presenting workshop results at DILS 2005, publication of the workshop final report by the NBII [1], and a poster at the NBII All Hands Meeting (Oct. 2005). We also expect a special issue of the JIIS to appear in 2006 that addresses some of these questions. As we go to press, no solicitation by funding agencies has as yet been published, but various NASA and NBII, and NSF cyber-infrastructure and DG research efforts now underway address the above issues.

[The Role and Function of Informatics Nurses in Information Technology Decision-Making].

PubMed

Lee, Tso-Ying

2017-08-01

The medical environment has changed greatly with the coming of the information age, and, increasingly, the operating procedures for medical services have been altered in keeping with the trend toward mobile, paperless services. Informatization has the potential to improve the working efficiency of medical personnel, enhance patient care safety, and give medical organizations a positive image. Informatics nurses play an important role in the decision-making processes that accompany informatization. As one of the decision-making links in the information technology lifecycle, this role affects the success of the development and operation of information systems. The present paper examines the functions and professional knowledge that informatics nurses must possess during the technology lifecycle, the four stages of which include: planning, analysis, design/development/revision, and implementation/assessment/support/maintenance. The present paper further examines the decision-making shortcomings and errors that an informatics nurses may make during the decision-making process. We hope that this paper will serve as an effective and useful reference for informatics nurses during the informatization decision-making process.

Discovering anomalous events from urban informatics data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jayarajah, Kasthuri; Subbaraju, Vigneshwaran; Weerakoon, Dulanga; Misra, Archan; Tam, La Thanh; Athaide, Noel

2017-05-01

Singapore's "smart city" agenda is driving the government to provide public access to a broader variety of urban informatics sources, such as images from traffic cameras and information about buses servicing different bus stops. Such informatics data serves as probes of evolving conditions at different spatiotemporal scales. This paper explores how such multi-modal informatics data can be used to establish the normal operating conditions at different city locations, and then apply appropriate outlier-based analysis techniques to identify anomalous events at these selected locations. We will introduce the overall architecture of sociophysical analytics, where such infrastructural data sources can be combined with social media analytics to not only detect such anomalous events, but also localize and explain them. Using the annual Formula-1 race as our candidate event, we demonstrate a key difference between the discriminative capabilities of different sensing modes: while social media streams provide discriminative signals during or prior to the occurrence of such an event, urban informatics data can often reveal patterns that have higher persistence, including before and after the event. In particular, we shall demonstrate how combining data from (i) publicly available Tweets, (ii) crowd levels aboard buses, and (iii) traffic cameras can help identify the Formula-1 driven anomalies, across different spatiotemporal boundaries.

Informatics tools to improve clinical research study implementation.

PubMed

Brandt, Cynthia A; Argraves, Stephanie; Money, Roy; Ananth, Gowri; Trocky, Nina M; Nadkarni, Prakash M

2006-04-01

There are numerous potential sources of problems when performing complex clinical research trials. These issues are compounded when studies are multi-site and multiple personnel from different sites are responsible for varying actions from case report form design to primary data collection and data entry. We describe an approach that emphasizes the use of a variety of informatics tools that can facilitate study coordination, training, data checks and early identification and correction of faulty procedures and data problems. The paper focuses on informatics tools that can help in case report form design, procedures and training and data management. Informatics tools can be used to facilitate study coordination and implementation of clinical research trials.

Informatics and Nursing in a Post-Nursing Informatics World: Future Directions for Nurses in an Automated, Artificially Intelligent, Social-Networked Healthcare Environment.

PubMed

Booth, Richard G

2016-01-01

The increased adoption and use of technology within healthcare and society has influenced the nursing informatics specialty in a multitude of fashions. Namely, the nursing informatics specialty currently faces a range of important decisions related to its knowledge base, established values and future directions - all of which are in need of development and future-proofing. In light of the increased use of automation, artificial intelligence and big data in healthcare, the specialty must also reconceptualize the roles of both nurses and informaticians to ensure that the nursing profession is ready to operate within future digitalized healthcare ecosystems. To explore these goals, the author of this manuscript outlines an examination of technological advancements currently taking place within healthcare, and also proposes implications for the nursing role and the nursing informatics specialty. Finally, recommendations and insights towards how the roles of nurses and informaticians might evolve or be shaped in the growing post-nursing informatics era are presented. Copyright © 2016 Longwoods Publishing.

Metropolis revisited: the evolving role of librarians in informatics education for the health professions

PubMed Central

King, Samuel B.; Lapidus, Mariana

2015-01-01

Objective: The authors' goal was to assess changes in the role of librarians in informatics education from 2004 to 2013. This is a follow-up to “Metropolis Redux: The Unique Importance of Library Skills in Informatics,” a 2004 survey of informatics programs. Methods: An electronic survey was conducted in January 2013 and sent to librarians via the MEDLIB-L email discussion list, the library section of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Medical Informatics Section of the Medical Library Association, the Information Technology Interest Group of the Association of College and Research Libraries/New England Region, and various library directors across the country. Results: Librarians from fifty-five institutions responded to the survey. Of these respondents, thirty-four included librarians in nonlibrary aspects of informatics training. Fifteen institutions have librarians participating in leadership positions in their informatics programs. Compared to the earlier survey, the role of librarians has evolved. Conclusions: Librarians possess skills that enable them to participate in informatics programs beyond a narrow library focus. Librarians currently perform significant leadership roles in informatics education. There are opportunities for librarian interdisciplinary collaboration in informatics programs. Implications: Informatics is much more than the study of technology. The information skills that librarians bring to the table enrich and broaden the study of informatics in addition to adding value to the library profession itself. PMID:25552939

Metropolis revisited: the evolving role of librarians in informatics education for the health professions.

PubMed

King, Samuel B; Lapidus, Mariana

2015-01-01

The authors' goal was to assess changes in the role of librarians in informatics education from 2004 to 2013. This is a follow-up to "Metropolis Redux: The Unique Importance of Library Skills in Informatics," a 2004 survey of informatics programs. An electronic survey was conducted in January 2013 and sent to librarians via the MEDLIB-L email discussion list, the library section of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Medical Informatics Section of the Medical Library Association, the Information Technology Interest Group of the Association of College and Research Libraries/New England Region, and various library directors across the country. Librarians from fifty-five institutions responded to the survey. Of these respondents, thirty-four included librarians in nonlibrary aspects of informatics training. Fifteen institutions have librarians participating in leadership positions in their informatics programs. Compared to the earlier survey, the role of librarians has evolved. Librarians possess skills that enable them to participate in informatics programs beyond a narrow library focus. Librarians currently perform significant leadership roles in informatics education. There are opportunities for librarian interdisciplinary collaboration in informatics programs. Informatics is much more than the study of technology. The information skills that librarians bring to the table enrich and broaden the study of informatics in addition to adding value to the library profession itself.

Office of Biological Informatics and Outreach geospatial technology activities

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

1998-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Office of Biological Informatics and Outreach (OBIO) in Reston, Virginia, and its Center for Biological Informatics (CBI) in Denver, Colorado, provide leadership in the development and use of geospatial technologies to advance the Nation's biological science activities.

Biomedical and Health Informatics Education – the IMIA Years

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Summary Objective This paper presents the development of medical informatics education during the years from the establishment of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) until today. Method A search in the literature was performed using search engines and appropriate keywords as well as a manual selection of papers. The search covered English language papers and was limited to search on papers title and abstract only. Results The aggregated papers were analyzed on the basis of the subject area, origin, time span, and curriculum development, and conclusions were drawn. Conclusions From the results, it is evident that IMIA has played a major role in comparing and integrating the Biomedical and Health Informatics educational efforts across the different levels of education and the regional distribution of educators and institutions. A large selection of references is presented facilitating future work on the field of education in biomedical and health informatics. PMID:27488405

Middle East and North African Health Informatics Association (MENAHIA): Building Sustainable Collaboration.

PubMed

Al-Shorbaji, Najeeb; Househ, Mowafa; Taweel, Adel; Alanizi, Abdullah; Mohammed, Bennani Othmani; Abaza, Haitham; Bawadi, Hala; Rasuly, Hamayon; Alyafei, Khalid; Fernandez-Luque, Luis; Shouman, Mohamed; El-Hassan, Osama; Hussein, Rada; Alshammari, Riyad; Mandil, Salah; Shouman, Sarah; Taheri, Shahrad; Emara, Tamer; Dalhem, Wasmiya; Al-Hamdan, Zaid; Serhier, Zineb

2018-04-22

There has been a growing interest in Health Informatics applications, research, and education within the Middle East and North African Region over the past twenty years. People of this region share similar cultural and religious values, primarily speak the Arabic language, and have similar health care related issues, which are in dire need of being addressed. Health Informatics efforts, organizations, and initiatives within the region have been largely under-represented within, but not ignored by, the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). Attempts to create bonds and collaboration between the different organizations of the region have remained scattered, and often, resulted in failure despite the fact that the need for a united health informatics collaborative within the region has never been more crucial than today. During the 2017 MEDINFO, held in Hangzhou, China, a new organization, the Middle East and North African Health Informatics Association (MENAHIA) was conceived as a regional non-governmental organization to promote and facilitate health informatics uptake within the region endorsing health informatics research and educational initiatives of the 22 countries represented within the region. This paper provides an overview of the collaboration and efforts to date in forming MENAHIA and displays the variety of initiatives that are already occurring within the MENAHIA region, which MENAHIA will help, endorse, support, share, and improve within the international forum of health informatics. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

The exploration of the exhibition informatization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jiankang

2017-06-01

The construction and management of exhibition informatization is the main task and choke point during the process of Chinese exhibition industry’s transformation and promotion. There are three key points expected to realize a breakthrough during the construction of Chinese exhibition informatization, and the three aspects respectively are adopting service outsourcing to construct and maintain the database, adopting advanced chest card technology to collect various kinds of information, developing statistics analysis to maintain good cutomer relations. The success of Chinese exhibition informatization mainly calls for mature suppliers who can provide construction and maintenance of database, the proven technology, a sense of data security, advanced chest card technology, the ability of data mining and analysis and the ability to improve the exhibition service basing on the commercial information got from the data analysis. Several data security measures are expected to apply during the process of system developing, including the measures of the terminal data security, the internet data security, the media data security, the storage data security and the application data security. The informatization of this process is based on the chest card designing. At present, there are several types of chest card technology: bar code chest card; two-dimension code card; magnetic stripe chest card; smart-chip chest card. The information got from the exhibition data will help the organizers to make relevant service strategies, quantify the accumulated indexes of the customers, and improve the level of the customer’s satisfaction and loyalty, what’s more, the information can also provide more additional services like the commercial trips, VIP ceremonial reception.

The evolution of medical informatics in China: A retrospective study and lessons learned.

PubMed

Lei, Jianbo; Meng, Qun; Li, Yuefeng; Liang, Minghui; Zheng, Kai

2016-08-01

In contrast to China's giant health information technology (HIT) market and tremendous investments in hospital information systems the contributions of Chinese scholars in medical informatics to the global community are very limited. China would like to have a more important position in the global medical informatics community. A better understanding of the differences between medical informatics research and education in China and the discipline that emerged abroad will better inform Chinese scholars to develop right strategies to advance the field in China and help identify an appropriate means to collaborate more closely with medical informatics scholars globally. For the first time, this paper divides the evolution of medical informatics in China into four stages based on changes in the core content of research, the educational orientation and other developmental characteristics. The four stages are infancy, incubation, primary establishment and formal establishment. This paper summarizes and reviews major supporting journals and publications, as well as major organizations. Finally, we analyze the main problems that exist in the current disciplinary development in China related to medical informatics research and education and offer suggestions for future improvement. The evolution of medical informatics shows a strong and traditional concentration on medical library/bibliographic information rather than medical (hospital information or patient information) information. Misdirected-concentration, a lack of formal medical informatics trained teaching staff and mistakenly positioning medical informatics as an undergraduate discipline are some of the problems inhibiting the development of medical informatics in China. These lessons should be shared and learned for the global community. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Data, Staff, and Money: Leadership Reflections on the Future of Public Health Informatics.

PubMed

Leider, Jonathon P; Shah, Gulzar H; Williams, Karmen S; Gupta, Akrati; Castrucci, Brian C

Health informatics can play a critical role in supporting local health departments' (LHDs') delivery of certain essential public health services and improving evidence base for decision support. However, LHDs' informatics capacities are below an optimum level. Efforts to build such capacities face ongoing challenges. Moreover, little is known about LHD leaders' desires for the future of public health informatics. Conduct a qualitative analysis of LHDs' future informatics plans, perceived barriers to accomplishing those plans, and potential impact of future advances in public health informatics on the work of the public health enterprise. This research presents findings from 49 in-depth key informant interviews with public health leaders and informatics professionals from LHDs, representing insights from across the United States. Interviewees were selected on the basis of the size of the population their LHD serves, as well as level of informatics capacity. Interviews were transcribed, verified, and double coded. Major barriers to doing more with informatics included staff capacity and training, financial constraints, dependency on state health agency, and small LHD size/lack of regionalization. When asked about the role of leadership in expanding informatics, interviewees said that leaders could make it a priority through (1) learning more about informatics and (2) creating appropriate budgets for integrated information systems. Local health department leaders said that they desired data that were timely and geographically specific. In addition, LHD leaders said that they desired greater access to clinical data, especially around chronic disease indicators. Local health department leadership desires to have timely or even real-time data. Local health departments have a great potential to benefit from informatics, particularly electronic health records in advancing their administrative practices and service delivery, but financial and human capital represents the

A strategic vision for telemedicine and medical informatics in space flight

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, D. R.; Bashshur, R. L.; Pool, S. L.; Doarn, C. R.; Merrell, R. C.; Logan, J. S.

2000-01-01

This Workshop was designed to assist in the ongoing development and application of telemedicine and medical informatics to support extended space flight. Participants included specialists in telemedicine and medical/health informatics (terrestrial and space) medicine from NASA, federal agencies, academic centers, and research and development institutions located in the United States and several other countries. The participants in the working groups developed vision statements, requirements, approaches, and recommendations pertaining to developing and implementing a strategy pertaining to telemedicine and medical informatics. Although some of the conclusions and recommendations reflect ongoing work at NASA, others provided new insight and direction that may require a reprioritization of current NASA efforts in telemedicine and medical informatics. This, however, was the goal of the Workshop. NASA is seeking other perspectives and views from leading practitioners in the fields of telemedicine and medical informatics to invigorate an essential and high-priority component of the International Space Station and future extended exploration missions. Subsequent workshops will further define and refine the general findings and recommendations achieved here. NASA's ultimate aim is to build a sound telemedicine and medical informatics operational system to provide the best medical care available for astronauts going to Mars and beyond.

A strategic vision for telemedicine and medical informatics in space flight.

PubMed

Williams, D R; Bashshur, R L; Pool, S L; Doarn, C R; Merrell, R C; Logan, J S

2000-01-01

This Workshop was designed to assist in the ongoing development and application of telemedicine and medical informatics to support extended space flight. Participants included specialists in telemedicine and medical/health informatics (terrestrial and space) medicine from NASA, federal agencies, academic centers, and research and development institutions located in the United States and several other countries. The participants in the working groups developed vision statements, requirements, approaches, and recommendations pertaining to developing and implementing a strategy pertaining to telemedicine and medical informatics. Although some of the conclusions and recommendations reflect ongoing work at NASA, others provided new insight and direction that may require a reprioritization of current NASA efforts in telemedicine and medical informatics. This, however, was the goal of the Workshop. NASA is seeking other perspectives and views from leading practitioners in the fields of telemedicine and medical informatics to invigorate an essential and high-priority component of the International Space Station and future extended exploration missions. Subsequent workshops will further define and refine the general findings and recommendations achieved here. NASA's ultimate aim is to build a sound telemedicine and medical informatics operational system to provide the best medical care available for astronauts going to Mars and beyond.

Informatics: A Brief Survey.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

He, Shaoyi

2003-01-01

Provides a brief survey of informatics, defined as the application of information technology to various fields, with respect to its historical background, disciplinary identity, fundamental aspects, applications, and challenges. Highlights include biological, clinical, dental, environmental, geomatics, health, legal, management, medical, museum,…

RN, CIO: an executive informatics career.

PubMed

Staggers, Nancy; Lasome, Caterina E M

2005-01-01

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) position is a viable new career track for clinical informaticists. Nurses, especially informatics nurses, are uniquely positioned for the CIO role because of their operational knowledge of clinical processes, communication skills, systems thinking abilities, and knowledge about information structures and processes. This article describes essential knowledge and skills for the CIO executive position. Competencies not typical to nurses can be learned and developed, particularly strategic visioning and organizational finesse. This article concludes by describing career development steps toward the CIO position: leadership and management; healthcare operations; organizational finesse; and informatics knowledge, processes, methods, and structures.

A core curriculum for clinical fellowship training in pathology informatics

PubMed Central

McClintock, David S.; Levy, Bruce P.; Lane, William J.; Lee, Roy E.; Baron, Jason M.; Klepeis, Veronica E.; Onozato, Maristela L.; Kim, JiYeon; Dighe, Anand S.; Beckwith, Bruce A.; Kuo, Frank; Black-Schaffer, Stephen; Gilbertson, John R.

2012-01-01

Background: In 2007, our healthcare system established a clinical fellowship program in Pathology Informatics. In 2010 a core didactic course was implemented to supplement the fellowship research and operational rotations. In 2011, the course was enhanced by a formal, structured core curriculum and reading list. We present and discuss our rationale and development process for the Core Curriculum and the role it plays in our Pathology Informatics Fellowship Training Program. Materials and Methods: The Core Curriculum for Pathology Informatics was developed, and is maintained, through the combined efforts of our Pathology Informatics Fellows and Faculty. The curriculum was created with a three-tiered structure, consisting of divisions, topics, and subtopics. Primary (required) and suggested readings were selected for each subtopic in the curriculum and incorporated into a curated reading list, which is reviewed and maintained on a regular basis. Results: Our Core Curriculum is composed of four major divisions, 22 topics, and 92 subtopics that cover the wide breadth of Pathology Informatics. The four major divisions include: (1) Information Fundamentals, (2) Information Systems, (3) Workflow and Process, and (4) Governance and Management. A detailed, comprehensive reading list for the curriculum is presented in the Appendix to the manuscript and contains 570 total readings (current as of March 2012). Discussion: The adoption of a formal, core curriculum in a Pathology Informatics fellowship has significant impacts on both fellowship training and the general field of Pathology Informatics itself. For a fellowship, a core curriculum defines a basic, common scope of knowledge that the fellowship expects all of its graduates will know, while at the same time enhancing and broadening the traditional fellowship experience of research and operational rotations. For the field of Pathology Informatics itself, a core curriculum defines to the outside world, including

Medical Informatics Idle YouTube Potential.

PubMed

Hucíková, Anežka; Babic, Ankica

2017-01-01

YouTube as an online video-sharing service in the context of Web 2.0 goes beyond the bounds of pure fun, for which the platform was primarily established. Nowadays, commonly to other social media, it serves also educational, informational and last but not least, marketing purposes. The importance of video sharing is supported by several predictions about video reaching over 90% of global internet traffic by 2020. Using qualitative content analysis over selected YouTube videos, paper examines the current situation of the platform's marketing potential usage by medical informatics organizations, researches and other healthcare professionals. Results of the analysis demonstrate several ways in which YouTube is already used to inform, educate or promote above-mentioned medical institutions. However, their engagement in self-promo or spreading awareness of their research projects via YouTube is considered to be low.

[Role of self-leadership in the relationship between organizational culture and informatics competency].

PubMed

Kim, Myoung Soo

2009-10-01

The purpose of this study was to identify the moderating and mediating effects of self-leadership in the relationship between organizational culture and nurses' informatics competency. Participants in this study were 297 nurses from the cities of Busan and Ulsan. The scales of organizational culture, self-leadership and informatics competency for nurses were used in this study. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient, stepwise multiple regression were used for data analysis. Nursing informatics competency of the participants was relatively low with a mean score 3.02. There were significant positive correlations between subcategories of perceived organizational culture, self-leadership and nursing informatics competency. Self-leadership was a moderator and a mediator between organizational culture and informatics competency. Based on the results of this study, self-leadership promotion strategies to improve nursing informatics competency are needed.

Teaching Informatics to Prelicensure, RN-to-BSN, and Graduate Level Students.

PubMed

Vottero, Beth

Teaching nursing informatics to students in associate, baccalaureate, RN-BSN, and graduate nursing programs poses challenges for curriculum design, as well as developing appropriate instruction and assessment methods. The current state of nursing informatics education provides opportunities for unique instructional design and assessment techniques. Key course content is provided with suggestions for teaching informatics that focus on leveling for prelicensure, RN-BSN, and graduate nursing programs.

Climate Informatics: Accelerating Discovering in Climate Science with Machine Learning

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Monteleoni, Claire; Schmidt, Gavin A.; McQuade, Scott

2014-01-01

The goal of climate informatics, an emerging discipline, is to inspire collaboration between climate scientists and data scientists, in order to develop tools to analyze complex and ever-growing amounts of observed and simulated climate data, and thereby bridge the gap between data and understanding. Here, recent climate informatics work is presented, along with details of some of the field's remaining challenges. Given the impact of climate change, understanding the climate system is an international priority. The goal of climate informatics is to inspire collaboration between climate scientists and data scientists, in order to develop tools to analyze complex and ever-growing amounts of observed and simulated climate data, and thereby bridge the gap between data and understanding. Here, recent climate informatics work is presented, along with details of some of the remaining challenges.

Applications of the pipeline environment for visual informatics and genomics computations

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Contemporary informatics and genomics research require efficient, flexible and robust management of large heterogeneous data, advanced computational tools, powerful visualization, reliable hardware infrastructure, interoperability of computational resources, and detailed data and analysis-protocol provenance. The Pipeline is a client-server distributed computational environment that facilitates the visual graphical construction, execution, monitoring, validation and dissemination of advanced data analysis protocols. Results This paper reports on the applications of the LONI Pipeline environment to address two informatics challenges - graphical management of diverse genomics tools, and the interoperability of informatics software. Specifically, this manuscript presents the concrete details of deploying general informatics suites and individual software tools to new hardware infrastructures, the design, validation and execution of new visual analysis protocols via the Pipeline graphical interface, and integration of diverse informatics tools via the Pipeline eXtensible Markup Language syntax. We demonstrate each of these processes using several established informatics packages (e.g., miBLAST, EMBOSS, mrFAST, GWASS, MAQ, SAMtools, Bowtie) for basic local sequence alignment and search, molecular biology data analysis, and genome-wide association studies. These examples demonstrate the power of the Pipeline graphical workflow environment to enable integration of bioinformatics resources which provide a well-defined syntax for dynamic specification of the input/output parameters and the run-time execution controls. Conclusions The LONI Pipeline environment http://pipeline.loni.ucla.edu provides a flexible graphical infrastructure for efficient biomedical computing and distributed informatics research. The interactive Pipeline resource manager enables the utilization and interoperability of diverse types of informatics resources. The Pipeline client

Evolution of Trends in European Medical Informatics

PubMed Central

I. Mihalas, George

2014-01-01

This presentation attempts to analyze the trends in Medical Informatics along half a century, in the European socio-political and technological development context. Based on the major characteristics which seem dominant in some periods, a staging is proposed, with a description of each period – the context, major ideas, views and events. A summary of major features of each period is also added. This paper has an original presentation of the evolution of major trends in medical informatics. PMID:24648618

Informatic innovations in glycobiology: relevance to drug discovery.

PubMed

Mamitsuka, Hiroshi

2008-02-01

The recent development and applications of tree-based informatics on glycans have accelerated the biological analysis on glycans, particularly from structural viewpoints. We review three major aspects of recent informatics innovations on glycan structures: maturity of well-organized databases on glycan structures linking with other biological information, implementation of glycan structure matching algorithms and extensive development of methods for mining frequent patterns from glycan structures.

Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation of The Structural Designing of Medical Informatics Dynamic Encyclopedia.

PubMed

Safdari, Reza; Shahmoradi, Leila; Hosseini-Beheshti, Molouk-Sadat; Nejad, Ahmadreza Farzaneh; Hosseiniravandi, Mohammad

2015-10-01

Encyclopedias and their compilation have become so prevalent as a valid cultural medium in the world. The daily development of computer industry and the expansion of various sciences have made indispensable the compilation of electronic, specialized encyclopedias, especially the web-based ones. This is an applied-developmental study conducted in 2014. First, the main terms in the field of medical informatics were gathered using MeSH Online 2014 and the supplementary terms of each were determined, and then the tree diagram of the terms was drawn based on their relationship in MeSH. Based on the studies done by the researchers, the tree diagram of the encyclopedia was drawn with respect to the existing areas in this field, and the terms gathered were put in related domains. In MeSH, 75 preferred terms together with 249 supplementary ones were indexed. One of the informatics' sub-branches is biomedical informatics and health which itself consists of three sub-divisions of bioinformatics, clinical informatics, and health informatics. Medical informatics which is a subdivision of clinical informatics has developed from the three fields of medical sciences, management and social sciences, and computational sciences and mathematics. Medical Informatics is created of confluence and fusion and applications of the three major scientific branches include health and biological sciences, social sciences and management sciences, computing and mathematical sciences, and according to that the structure of MeSH is weak for future development of Encyclopedia of Medical Informatics.

Current Status for Teaching Nursing Informatics in Denmark, Canada, and Australia.

PubMed

Madsen, Inge; Cummings, Elizabeth; Borycki, Elizabeth M

2015-01-01

Nursing schools in Denmark, Canada, and Australia are all currently involved in integrating nursing informatics in the nursing bachelor programme. This paper gives a brief update on the current situation of nursing informatics education for bachelor level nurses in each of the three countries. Whilst there are differences in the curriculum in each county, it is important to share knowledge about undergraduate nursing informatics worldwide to ensure consistency.

Tools to Analyze Morphology and Spatially Mapped Molecular Data | Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)

Cancer.gov

This project is to develop, deploy, and disseminate a suite of open source tools and integrated informatics platform that will facilitate multi-scale, correlative analyses of high resolution whole slide tissue image data, spatially mapped genetics and molecular data for cancer research. This platform will play an essential role in supporting studies of tumor initiation, development, heterogeneity, invasion, and metastasis.

Informatics — EDRN Public Portal

Cancer.gov

The EDRN provides a comprehensive informatics activity which includes a number of tools and an integrated knowledge environment for capturing, managing, integrating, and sharing results from across EDRN's cancer biomarker research network.

Visibility of medical informatics regarding bibliometric indices and databases

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background The quantitative study of the publication output (bibliometrics) deeply influences how scientific work is perceived (bibliometric visibility). Recently, new bibliometric indices and databases have been established, which may change the visibility of disciplines, institutions and individuals. This study examines the effects of the new indices on the visibility of Medical Informatics. Methods By objective criteria, three sets of journals are chosen, two representing Medical Informatics and a third addressing Internal Medicine as a benchmark. The availability of index data (index coverage) and the aggregate scores of these corpora are compared for journal-related (Journal impact factor, Eigenfactor metrics, SCImago journal rank) and author-related indices (Hirsch-index, Egghes G-index). Correlation analysis compares the dependence of author-related indices. Results The bibliometric visibility depended on the research focus and the citation database: Scopus covers more journals relevant for Medical Informatics than ISI/Thomson Reuters. Journals focused on Medical Informatics' methodology were negatively affected by the Eigenfactor metrics, while the visibility profited from an interdisciplinary research focus. The correlation between Hirsch-indices computed on citation databases and the Internet was strong. Conclusions The visibility of smaller technology-oriented disciplines like Medical Informatics is changed by the new bibliometric indices and databases possibly leading to suitably changed publication strategies. Freely accessible author-related indices enable an easy and adequate individual assessment. PMID:21496230

Affective medicine. A review of affective computing efforts in medical informatics.

PubMed

Luneski, A; Konstantinidis, E; Bamidis, P D

2010-01-01

Affective computing (AC) is concerned with emotional interactions performed with and through computers. It is defined as "computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions". AC enables investigation and understanding of the relation between human emotions and health as well as application of assistive and useful technologies in the medical domain. 1) To review the general state of the art in AC and its applications in medicine, and 2) to establish synergies between the research communities of AC and medical informatics. Aspects related to the human affective state as a determinant of the human health are discussed, coupled with an illustration of significant AC research and related literature output. Moreover, affective communication channels are described and their range of application fields is explored through illustrative examples. The presented conferences, European research projects and research publications illustrate the recent increase of interest in the AC area by the medical community. Tele-home healthcare, AmI, ubiquitous monitoring, e-learning and virtual communities with emotionally expressive characters for elderly or impaired people are few areas where the potential of AC has been realized and applications have emerged. A number of gaps can potentially be overcome through the synergy of AC and medical informatics. The application of AC technologies parallels the advancement of the existing state of the art and the introduction of new methods. The amount of work and projects reviewed in this paper witness an ambitious and optimistic synergetic future of the affective medicine field.

A short history of medical informatics in bosnia and herzegovina.

PubMed

Masic, Izet

2014-02-01

The health informatics profession in Bosnia and Herzegovina has relatively long history. Thirty five years from the introduction of the first automatic manipulation of data, thirty years from the establishment of Society for Medical Informatics BiH, twenty years from the establishment of the Scientific journal "Acta Informatica Medica (Acta Inform Med", indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central Scopus, Embase, etc.), twenty years on from the establishment of the first Cathedra for Medical Informatics on Biomedical Faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ten years on from the introduction of the method of "Distance learning" in medical curriculum. The author of this article is eager to mark the importance of the above mentioned Anniversaries in the development of Health informatics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and have attempted, very briefly, to present the most significant events and persons with essential roles throughout this period.

Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics: Collaborations on the Road to Genomic Medicine?

PubMed Central

Maojo, Victor; Kulikowski, Casimir A.

2003-01-01

In this report, the authors compare and contrast medical informatics (MI) and bioinformatics (BI) and provide a viewpoint on their complementarities and potential for collaboration in various subfields. The authors compare MI and BI along several dimensions, including: (1) historical development of the disciplines, (2) their scientific foundations, (3) data quality and analysis, (4) integration of knowledge and databases, (5) informatics tools to support practice, (6) informatics methods to support research (signal processing, imaging and vision, and computational modeling, (7) professional and patient continuing education, and (8) education and training. It is pointed out that, while the two disciplines differ in their histories, scientific foundations, and methodologic approaches to research in various areas, they nevertheless share methods and tools, which provides a basis for exchange of experience in their different applications. MI expertise in developing health care applications and the strength of BI in biological “discovery science” complement each other well. The new field of biomedical informatics (BMI) holds great promise for developing informatics methods that will be crucial in the development of genomic medicine. The future of BMI will be influenced strongly by whether significant advances in clinical practice and biomedical research come about from separate efforts in MI and BI, or from emerging, hybrid informatics subdisciplines at their interface. PMID:12925552

The life and death of URLs in five biomedical informatics journals.

PubMed

Carnevale, Randy J; Aronsky, Dominik

2007-04-01

To determine the decay rate of Uniform Record Locators (URLs) in the reference section of biomedical informatics journals. URL references were collected from printed journal articles of the first and middle issues of 1999-2004 and electronically available in-press articles in January 2005. We limited this set to five biomedical informatics journals: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: JAMIA, Methods of Information in Medicine, and Journal of Biomedical Informatics. During a 1-month period, URL access attempts were performed eight times a day at regular intervals. Of the 19,108 references extracted from 606 printed and 86 in-press articles, 1112 (5.8%) references contained a URL. Of the 1049 unique URLs, 726 (69.2%) were alive, 230 (21.9%) were dead, and 93 (8.9%) were comatose. URLs from in-press articles included 212 URLs, of which 169 (79.7%) were alive, 21 (9.9%) were dead, and 22 (10.4%) were comatose. The average annual decay, or link rot, rate was 5.4%. The URL decay rate in biomedical informatics journals is high. A commonly accepted strategy for the permanent archival of digital information referenced in scholarly publications is urgently needed.

Nurse Leadership and Informatics Competencies: Shaping Transformation of Professional Practice.

PubMed

Kennedy, Margaret Ann; Moen, Anne

2017-01-01

Nurse leaders must demonstrate capacities and develop specific informatics competencies in order to provide meaningful leadership and support ongoing transformation of the healthcare system. Concurrently, staff informatics competencies must be planned and fostered to support critical principles of transformation and patient safety in practice, advance evidence-informed practice, and enable nursing to flourish in complex digital environments across the healthcare continuum. In addition to nurse leader competencies, two key aspects of leadership and informatics competencies will be addressed in this chapter - namely, the transformation of health care and preparation of the nursing workforce.

Characteristics of Information Systems and Business Informatics Study Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Helfert, Markus

2011-01-01

Over the last decade there is an intensive discussion within the Information Systems (IS) and Informatics community about the characteristics and identity of the discipline. Simultaneously with the discussion, there is an ongoing debate on essential skills and capabilities of IS and Business Informatics graduates as well as the profile of IS…

A Repository of Codes of Ethics and Technical Standards in Health Informatics

PubMed Central

Zaïane, Osmar R.

2014-01-01

We present a searchable repository of codes of ethics and standards in health informatics. It is built using state-of-the-art search algorithms and technologies. The repository will be potentially beneficial for public health practitioners, researchers, and software developers in finding and comparing ethics topics of interest. Public health clinics, clinicians, and researchers can use the repository platform as a one-stop reference for various ethics codes and standards. In addition, the repository interface is built for easy navigation, fast search, and side-by-side comparative reading of documents. Our selection criteria for codes and standards are two-fold; firstly, to maintain intellectual property rights, we index only codes and standards freely available on the internet. Secondly, major international, regional, and national health informatics bodies across the globe are surveyed with the aim of understanding the landscape in this domain. We also look at prevalent technical standards in health informatics from major bodies such as the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Our repository contains codes of ethics from the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), the iHealth Coalition (iHC), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI), the British Computer Society (BCS), and the UK Council for Health Informatics Professions (UKCHIP), with room for adding more in the future. Our major contribution is enhancing the findability of codes and standards related to health informatics ethics by compilation and unified access through the health informatics ethics repository. PMID:25422725

Person-generated Data in Self-quantification. A Health Informatics Research Program.

PubMed

Gray, Kathleen; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando J; Lopez-Campos, Guillermo H; Almalki, Manal; Merolli, Mark

2017-01-09

The availability of internet-connected mobile, wearable and ambient consumer technologies, direct-to-consumer e-services and peer-to-peer social media sites far outstrips evidence about the efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy of using them in healthcare applications. The aim of this paper is to describe one approach to build a program of health informatics research, so as to generate rich and robust evidence about health data and information processing in self-quantification and associated healthcare and health outcomes. The paper summarises relevant health informatics research approaches in the literature and presents an example of developing a program of research in the Health and Biomedical Informatics Centre (HaBIC) at the University of Melbourne. The paper describes this program in terms of research infrastructure, conceptual models, research design, research reporting and knowledge sharing. The paper identifies key outcomes from integrative and multiple-angle approaches to investigating the management of information and data generated by use of this Centre's collection of wearable, mobiles and other devices in health self-monitoring experiments. These research results offer lessons for consumers, developers, clinical practitioners and biomedical and health informatics researchers. Health informatics is increasingly called upon to make sense of emerging self-quantification and other digital health phenomena that are well beyond the conventions of healthcare in which the field of informatics originated and consolidated. To make a substantial contribution to optimise the aims, processes and outcomes of health self-quantification needs further work at scale in multi-centre collaborations for this Centre and for health informatics researchers generally.

The Anesthesiologist-Informatician: A Survey of Physicians Board-Certified in Both Anesthesiology and Clinical Informatics.

PubMed

Poterack, Karl A; Epstein, Richard H; Dexter, Franklin

2018-03-12

All 36 physicians board-certified in both anesthesiology and clinical informatics as of January 1, 2016, were surveyed via e-mail, with 26 responding. Although most (25/26) generally expressed satisfaction with the clinical informatics boards, and view informatics expertise as important to anesthesiology, most (24/26) thought it unlikely or highly unlikely that substantial numbers of anesthesiology residents would pursue clinical informatics fellowships. Anesthesiologists wishing to qualify for the clinical informatics board examination under the practice pathway need to devote a substantive amount of worktime to informatics. There currently are options outside of formal fellowship training to acquire the knowledge to pass.

A national survey on the current status of informatics residency education in pharmacy.

PubMed

Blash, Anthony; Saltsman, Connie L; Steil, Condit

2017-11-01

Upon completion of their post-graduate training, pharmacy informatics residents need to be prepared to interact with clinical and technology experts in the new healthcare environment. This study describes pharmacy informatics residency programs within the United States. Preliminary information for all pharmacy informatics residency programs was accessed from program webpages. An email was sent out to programs asking them to respond to a six-item questionnaire. This questionnaire was designed to elicit information on attributes of the program, behaviors of the preceptors and residents, and attitudes of the residency directors. Of 22 pharmacy informatics residencies identified, nineteen (86%) participated. Twenty (91%) were second post-graduate year (PGY2) residencies. Ten (45%) were accredited by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), while eight (36%) were candidates for accreditation. Hospital (17/22, 77%) and administrative offices (3/22, 14%) were the predominant training sites for pharmacy informatics residents. Large institutions were the predominant training environment for the pharmacy informatics resident, with 19 of 22 (86%) institutions reporting a licensed bed count of 500 or more. The median (range) number of informatics preceptors at a site was six to eight. Regarding barriers to pharmacy informatics residency education, residency directors reported that residents did not feel prepared based on the limited availability of curricular offerings. In the United States, relatively few residencies are explicitly focused on pharmacy informatics. Most of these are accredited and hospital affiliated, especially with large institutions (>500 beds). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Training in pathology informatics: implementation at the University of Pittsburgh.

PubMed

Harrison, James H; Stewart, Jimmie

2003-08-01

Pathology informatics is generally recognized as an important component of pathology training, but the scope, form, and goals of informatics training vary substantially between pathology residency programs. The Training and Education Committee of the Association for Pathology Informatics (API TEC) has developed a standard set of knowledge and skills objectives that are recommended for inclusion in pathology informatics training and may serve to standardize and formalize training programs in this area. The University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa) core rotation in pathology informatics includes most of these goals and is offered as an implementation model for pathology informatics training. The core rotation in pathology informatics is a 3-week, full-time rotation including didactic sessions and hands-on laboratories. Topics include general desktop computing and the Internet, but the primary focus of the rotation is vocabulary and concepts related to enterprise and pathology information systems, pathology practice, and research. The total contact time is 63 hours, and a total of 19 faculty and staff contribute. Pretests and posttests are given at the start and end of the rotation. Performance and course evaluation data were collected for 3 years (a total of 21 residents). The rotation implements 84% of the knowledge objectives and 94% of the skills objectives recommended by the API TEC. Residents scored an average of about 20% on the pretest and about 70% on the posttest for an average increase during the course of 50%. Posttest scores did not correlate with pretest scores or self-assessed computer skill level. The size of the pretest/posttest difference correlated negatively with the pretest scores and self-assessed computing skill level. Pretest scores were generally low regardless of whether residents were familiar with desktop computing and productivity applications, indicating that even residents who are computer "savvy" have limited knowledge of pathology

HAFNI-enabled largescale platform for neuroimaging informatics (HELPNI).

PubMed

Makkie, Milad; Zhao, Shijie; Jiang, Xi; Lv, Jinglei; Zhao, Yu; Ge, Bao; Li, Xiang; Han, Junwei; Liu, Tianming

Tremendous efforts have thus been devoted on the establishment of functional MRI informatics systems that recruit a comprehensive collection of statistical/computational approaches for fMRI data analysis. However, the state-of-the-art fMRI informatics systems are especially designed for specific fMRI sessions or studies of which the data size is not really big, and thus has difficulty in handling fMRI 'big data.' Given the size of fMRI data are growing explosively recently due to the advancement of neuroimaging technologies, an effective and efficient fMRI informatics system which can process and analyze fMRI big data is much needed. To address this challenge, in this work, we introduce our newly developed informatics platform, namely, 'HAFNI-enabled largescale platform for neuroimaging informatics (HELPNI).' HELPNI implements our recently developed computational framework of sparse representation of whole-brain fMRI signals which is called holistic atlases of functional networks and interactions (HAFNI) for fMRI data analysis. HELPNI provides integrated solutions to archive and process large-scale fMRI data automatically and structurally, to extract and visualize meaningful results information from raw fMRI data, and to share open-access processed and raw data with other collaborators through web. We tested the proposed HELPNI platform using publicly available 1000 Functional Connectomes dataset including over 1200 subjects. We identified consistent and meaningful functional brain networks across individuals and populations based on resting state fMRI (rsfMRI) big data. Using efficient sampling module, the experimental results demonstrate that our HELPNI system has superior performance than other systems for large-scale fMRI data in terms of processing and storing the data and associated results much faster.

HAFNI-enabled largescale platform for neuroimaging informatics (HELPNI).

PubMed

Makkie, Milad; Zhao, Shijie; Jiang, Xi; Lv, Jinglei; Zhao, Yu; Ge, Bao; Li, Xiang; Han, Junwei; Liu, Tianming

2015-12-01

Tremendous efforts have thus been devoted on the establishment of functional MRI informatics systems that recruit a comprehensive collection of statistical/computational approaches for fMRI data analysis. However, the state-of-the-art fMRI informatics systems are especially designed for specific fMRI sessions or studies of which the data size is not really big, and thus has difficulty in handling fMRI 'big data.' Given the size of fMRI data are growing explosively recently due to the advancement of neuroimaging technologies, an effective and efficient fMRI informatics system which can process and analyze fMRI big data is much needed. To address this challenge, in this work, we introduce our newly developed informatics platform, namely, 'HAFNI-enabled largescale platform for neuroimaging informatics (HELPNI).' HELPNI implements our recently developed computational framework of sparse representation of whole-brain fMRI signals which is called holistic atlases of functional networks and interactions (HAFNI) for fMRI data analysis. HELPNI provides integrated solutions to archive and process large-scale fMRI data automatically and structurally, to extract and visualize meaningful results information from raw fMRI data, and to share open-access processed and raw data with other collaborators through web. We tested the proposed HELPNI platform using publicly available 1000 Functional Connectomes dataset including over 1200 subjects. We identified consistent and meaningful functional brain networks across individuals and populations based on resting state fMRI (rsfMRI) big data. Using efficient sampling module, the experimental results demonstrate that our HELPNI system has superior performance than other systems for large-scale fMRI data in terms of processing and storing the data and associated results much faster.

A Short History of Medical Informatics in Bosnia and Herzegovina

PubMed Central

Masic, Izet

2014-01-01

The health informatics profession in Bosnia and Herzegovina has relatively long history. Thirty five years from the introduction of the first automatic manipulation of data, thirty years from the establishment of Society for Medical Informatics BiH, twenty years from the establishment of the Scientific journal “Acta Informatica Medica (Acta Inform Med”, indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central Scopus, Embase, etc.), twenty years on from the establishment of the first Cathedra for Medical Informatics on Biomedical Faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ten years on from the introduction of the method of “Distance learning” in medical curriculum. The author of this article is eager to mark the importance of the above mentioned Anniversaries in the development of Health informatics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and have attempted, very briefly, to present the most significant events and persons with essential roles throughout this period. PMID:24648621

Measuring Computer Science Knowledge Level of Hungarian Students Specialized in Informatics with Romanian Students Attending a Science Course or a Mathematics-Informatics Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kiss, Gabor

2012-01-01

An analysis of Information Technology knowledge of Hungarian and Romanian students was made with the help of a self developed web based Informatics Test. The goal of this research is an analysis of the Computer Science knowledge level of Hungarian and Romanian students attending a Science course or a Mathematics-Informatics course. Analysed was…

Women in biomedical engineering and health informatics.

PubMed

McGregor, Carolyn; Frize, Monique

2008-01-01

A valuable session for anyone whether student or not, interested in learning more about Biomedical Engineering and Health Informatics as a career choice for women. Prominent women within the domains Biomedical Engineering and Health Informatics will present their research and their humanitarian interests that motivate them. Utilise the fantastic networking opportunity that will conclude this session to build and establish new professional networks with other women interested in your fields of expertise. Bring your contact details and be ready to make new contacts that are relevant for you.

Building a semantic web-based metadata repository for facilitating detailed clinical modeling in cancer genome studies.

PubMed

Sharma, Deepak K; Solbrig, Harold R; Tao, Cui; Weng, Chunhua; Chute, Christopher G; Jiang, Guoqian

2017-06-05

Detailed Clinical Models (DCMs) have been regarded as the basis for retaining computable meaning when data are exchanged between heterogeneous computer systems. To better support clinical cancer data capturing and reporting, there is an emerging need to develop informatics solutions for standards-based clinical models in cancer study domains. The objective of the study is to develop and evaluate a cancer genome study metadata management system that serves as a key infrastructure in supporting clinical information modeling in cancer genome study domains. We leveraged a Semantic Web-based metadata repository enhanced with both ISO11179 metadata standard and Clinical Information Modeling Initiative (CIMI) Reference Model. We used the common data elements (CDEs) defined in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data dictionary, and extracted the metadata of the CDEs using the NCI Cancer Data Standards Repository (caDSR) CDE dataset rendered in the Resource Description Framework (RDF). The ITEM/ITEM_GROUP pattern defined in the latest CIMI Reference Model is used to represent reusable model elements (mini-Archetypes). We produced a metadata repository with 38 clinical cancer genome study domains, comprising a rich collection of mini-Archetype pattern instances. We performed a case study of the domain "clinical pharmaceutical" in the TCGA data dictionary and demonstrated enriched data elements in the metadata repository are very useful in support of building detailed clinical models. Our informatics approach leveraging Semantic Web technologies provides an effective way to build a CIMI-compliant metadata repository that would facilitate the detailed clinical modeling to support use cases beyond TCGA in clinical cancer study domains.

Neonatal Informatics: Transforming Neonatal Care Through Translational Bioinformatics

PubMed Central

Palma, Jonathan P.; Benitz, William E.; Tarczy-Hornoch, Peter; Butte, Atul J.; Longhurst, Christopher A.

2012-01-01

The future of neonatal informatics will be driven by the availability of increasingly vast amounts of clinical and genetic data. The field of translational bioinformatics is concerned with linking and learning from these data and applying new findings to clinical care to transform the data into proactive, predictive, preventive, and participatory health. As a result of advances in translational informatics, the care of neonates will become more data driven, evidence based, and personalized. PMID:22924023

The diversity and disparity in biomedical informatics (DDBI) workshop.

PubMed

Southerland, William M; Swamidass, S Joshua; Payne, Philip R O; Wiley, Laura; Williams-DeVane, ClarLynda

2018-01-01

The Diversity and Disparity in Biomedical Informatics (DDBI) workshop will be focused on complementary and critical issues concerned with enhancing diversity in the informatics workforce as well as diversity in patient cohorts. According to the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the NIH, diversity refers to the inclusion of the following traditionally underrepresented groups: African Americans/Blacks, Asians (>30 countries), American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Latino or Hispanic (20 countries). Gender, culture, and socioeconomic status are also important dimensions of diversity, which may define some underrepresented groups. The under-representation of specific groups in both the biomedical informatics workforce as well as in the patient-derived data that is being used for research purposes has contributed to an ongoing disparity; these groups have not experienced equity in contributing to or benefiting from advancements in informatics research. This workshop will highlight innovative efforts to increase the pool of minority informaticians and discuss examples of informatics research that addresses the health concerns that impact minority populations. This workshop topics will provide insight into overcoming pipeline issues in the development of minority informaticians while emphasizing the importance of minority participation in health related research. The DDBI workshop will occur in two parts. Part I will discuss specific minority health & health disparities research topics and Part II will cover discussions related to overcoming pipeline issues in the training of minority informaticians.

Biomedical informatics publications: a global perspective: part I: conferences.

PubMed

Maojo, V; García-Remesal, M; Bielza, C; Crespo, J; Perez-Rey, D; Kulikowski, C

2012-01-01

In the past decade, Medical Informatics (MI) and Bioinformatics (BI) have converged towards a new discipline, called Biomedical Informatics (BMI) bridging informatics methods across the spectrum from genomic research to personalized medicine and global healthcare. This convergence still raises challenging research questions which are being addressed by researchers internationally, which in turn raises the question of how biomedical informatics publications reflect the contributions from around the world in documenting the research. To analyse the worldwide participation of biomedical informatics researchers from professional groups and societies in the best-known scientific conferences in the field. The analysis is focused on their geographical affiliation, but also includes other features, such as the impact and recognition of the conferences. We manually collected data about authors of papers presented at three major MI conferences: Medinfo, MIE and the AMIA symposium. In addition, we collected data from a BI conference, ISMB, as a comparison. Finally, we analyzed the impact and recognition of these conferences within their scientific contexts. Data indicate a predominance of local authors at the regional conferences (AMIA and MIE), whereas other conferences with a world-wide scope (Medinfo and ISMB) had broader participation. Our analysis shows that the influence of these conferences beyond the discipline remains somewhat limited. Our results suggest that for BMI to be recognized as a broad discipline, both in the geographical and scientific sense, it will need to extend the scope of collaborations and their interdisciplinary impacts worldwide.

Informatics for practicing anatomical pathologists: marking a new era in pathology practice.

PubMed

Gabril, Manal Y; Yousef, George M

2010-03-01

Informatics can be defined as using highly advanced technologies to improve patient diagnosis or management. Pathology informatics had evolved as a response to the overwhelming amount of information that was available, in an attempt to better use and maintain them. The most commonly used tools of informatics can be classified into digital imaging, telepathology, as well as Internet and electronic data mining. Digital imaging is the storage of anatomical pathology information, either gross pictures or microscopic slides, in an electronic format. These images can be used for education, archival, diagnosis, and consultation. Virtual microscopy is the more advanced form of digital imaging with enhanced efficiency and accessibility. Telepathology is now increasingly becoming a useful tool in anatomical pathology practice. Different types of telepathology communications are available for both diagnostic and consultation services. The spectrum of applications of informatics in the field of anatomical pathology is broad and encompasses medical education, clinical services, and pathology research. Informatics is now settling on solid ground as an important tool for pathology teaching, with digital teaching becoming the standard tool in many institutions. After a slow start, we now witness the transition of informatics from the research bench to bedside. As we are moving into a new era of extensive pathology informatics utilization, several challenges have to be addressed, including the cost of the new technology, legal issues, and resistance of pathologists. It is clear from the current evidence that pathology informatics will continue to grow and have a major role in the future of our specialty. However, it is also clear that it is not going to fully replace the human factor or the regular microscope.

Innovation in transformative nursing leadership: nursing informatics competencies and roles.

PubMed

Remus, Sally; Kennedy, Margaret Ann

2012-12-01

In a recent brief to the Canadian Nurses Association's National Expert Commission on the Health of Our Nation, the Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses (ACEN) discussed leadership needs in the Canadian healthcare system, and promoted the pivotal role of nursing executives in transforming Canada's healthcare system into an integrated patient-centric system. Included among several recommendations was the need to develop innovative leadership competencies that enable nurse leaders to lead and advance transformative health system change. This paper focuses on an emerging "avant-garde executive leadership competency" recommended for today's health leaders to guide health system transformation. Specifically, this competency is articulated as "state of the art communication and technology savvy," and it implies linkages between nursing informatics competencies and transformational leadership roles for nurse executive. The authors of this paper propose that distinct nursing informatics competencies are required to augment traditional executive skills to support transformational outcomes of safe, integrated, high-quality care delivery through knowledge-driven care. International trends involving nursing informatics competencies and the evolution of new corporate informatics roles, such as chief nursing informatics officers (CNIOs), are demonstrating value and advanced transformational leadership as nursing executive roles that are informed by clinical data. Copyright © 2013 Longwoods Publishing.

A UML-based meta-framework for system design in public health informatics.

PubMed

Orlova, Anna O; Lehmann, Harold

2002-01-01

The National Agenda for Public Health Informatics calls for standards in data and knowledge representation within public health, which requires a multi-level framework that links all aspects of public health. The literature of public health informatics and public health informatics application were reviewed. A UML-based systems analysis was performed. Face validity of results was evaluated in analyzing the public health domain of lead poisoning. The core class of the UML-based system of public health is the Public Health Domain, which is associated with multiple Problems, for which Actors provide Perspectives. Actors take Actions that define, generate, utilize and/or evaluate Data Sources. The life cycle of the domain is a sequence of activities attributed to its problems that spirals through multiple iterations and realizations within a domain. The proposed Public Health Informatics Meta-Framework broadens efforts in applying informatics principles to the field of public health

The jubilee of medical informatics in bosnia and herzegovina - 20 years anniversary.

PubMed

Masic, Izet

2009-01-01

NONE DECLARED LAST TWO YEARS, THE HEALTH INFORMATICS PROFESSION CELEBRATED FIVE JUBILEES IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: thirty years from the introduction of the first automatic manipulation of data, twenty years from the establishment of Society for Medical Informatics BiH, fifteen years from the establishment of the Scientific and Professional Journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina "Acta Informatica Medica", fifteen years on from the establishment of the first Cathedra for Medical Informatics on Biomedical Faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and five years on from the introduction of the method of "Distance learning" in medical curriculum. The author of this article are eager to mark the importance of the above mentioned Anniversaries in the development of Health informatics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and have attempted, very briefly, to present the most significant events and persons with essential roles throughout this period.

Commentaries on “Informatics and Medicine: From Molecules to Populations”

PubMed Central

Altman, R. B.; Balling, R.; Brinkley, J. F.; Coiera, E.; Consorti, F.; Dhansay, M. A.; Geissbuhler, A.; Hersh, W.; Kwankam, S. Y.; Lorenzi, N. M.; Martin-Sanchez, F.; Mihalas, G. I.; Shahar, Y.; Takabayashi, K.; Wiederhold, G.

2009-01-01

Summary Objective To discuss interdisciplinary research and education in the context of informatics and medicine by commenting on the paper of Kuhn et al. “Informatics and Medicine: From Molecules to Populations”. Method Inviting an international group of experts in biomedical and health informatics and related disciplines to comment on this paper. Results and Conclusions The commentaries include a wide range of reasoned arguments and original position statements which, while strongly endorsing the educational needs identified by Kuhn et al., also point out fundamental challenges that are very specific to the unusual combination of scientific, technological, personal and social problems characterizing biomedical informatics. They point to the ultimate objectives of managing difficult human health problems, which are unlikely to yield to technological solutions alone. The psychological, societal, and environmental components of health and disease are emphasized by several of the commentators, setting the stage for further debate and constructive suggestions. PMID:18690363

Antecedents of the People and Organizational Aspects of Medical Informatics

PubMed Central

Lorenzi, Nancy M.; Riley, Robert T.; Blyth, Andrew J. C.; Southon, Gray; Dixon, Bradley J.

1997-01-01

Abstract People and organizational issues are critical in both implementing medical informatics systems and in dealing with the altered organizations that new systems often create. The people and organizational issues area—like medical informatics itself—is a blend of many disciplines. The academic disciplines of psychology, sociology, social psychology, social anthropology, organizational behavior and organizational development, management, and cognitive sciences are rich with research with significant potential to ease the introduction and on-going use of information technology in today's complex health systems. These academic areas contribute research data and core information for better understanding of such issues as the importance of and processes for creating future direction; managing a complex change process; effective strategies for involving individuals and groups in the informatics effort; and effectively managing the altered organization. This article reviews the behavioral and business referent disciplines that can potentially contribute to improved implementations and on-going management of change in the medical informatics arena. PMID:9067874

Nursing Informatics Competency Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dunn, Kristina

2017-01-01

Currently, C Hospital lacks a standardized nursing informatics competency program to validate nurses' skills and knowledge in using electronic medical records (EMRs). At the study locale, the organization is about to embark on the implementation of a new, more comprehensive EMR system. All departments will be required to use the new EMR, unlike…

Formal logic rewrite system bachelor in teaching mathematical informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Habiballa, Hashim; Jendryscik, Radek

2017-07-01

The article presents capabilities of the formal rewrite logic system - Bachelor - for teaching theoretical computer science (mathematical informatics). The system Bachelor enables constructivist approach to teaching and therefore it may enhance the learning process in hard informatics essential disciplines. It brings not only detailed description of formal rewrite process but also it can demonstrate algorithmical principles for logic formulae manipulations.

The Renewed Promise of Medical Informatics

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Summary The promise of the field of Medical Informatics has been great and its impact has been significant. In 1999, the Yearbook editors of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) - also the authors of the present paper - sought to assess this impact by selecting a number of seminal papers in the field, and asking experts to comment on these articles. In particular, it was requested whether and how the expectations, represented by these papers, had been fulfilled since their publication several decades earlier. Each expert was also invited to comment on what might be expected in the future. In the present paper, these areas are briefly reviewed again. Where did these early papers have an impact and where were they not as successful as originally expected? It should be noted that the extraordinary developments in computer technology observed in the last two decades could not have been foreseen by these early researchers. In closing, some of the possibilities and limitations of research in medical informatics are outlined in the context of a framework that considers six levels of computer applications in medicine and health care. For each level, some predictions are made for the future, concluded with thoughts on fruitful areas for ongoing research in the field. PMID:27199195

The Renewed Promise of Medical Informatics.

PubMed

van Bemmel, J H; McCray, A T

2016-05-20

The promise of the field of Medical Informatics has been great and its impact has been significant. In 1999, the Yearbook editors of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) - also the authors of the present paper - sought to assess this impact by selecting a number of seminal papers in the field, and asking experts to comment on these articles. In particular, it was requested whether and how the expectations, represented by these papers, had been fulfilled since their publication several decades earlier. Each expert was also invited to comment on what might be expected in the future. In the present paper, these areas are briefly reviewed again. Where did these early papers have an impact and where were they not as successful as originally expected? It should be noted that the extraordinary developments in computer technology observed in the last two decades could not have been foreseen by these early researchers. In closing, some of the possibilities and limitations of research in medical informatics are outlined in the context of a framework that considers six levels of computer applications in medicine and health care. For each level, some predictions are made for the future, concluded with thoughts on fruitful areas for ongoing research in the field.

The Health Information Technology Competencies Tool: Does It Translate for Nursing Informatics in the United States?

PubMed

Sipes, Carolyn; Hunter, Kathleen; McGonigle, Dee; West, Karen; Hill, Taryn; Hebda, Toni

2017-12-01

Information technology use in healthcare delivery mandates a prepared workforce. The initial Health Information Technology Competencies tool resulted from a 2-year transatlantic effort by experts from the US and European Union to identify approaches to develop skills and knowledge needed by healthcare workers. It was determined that competencies must be identified before strategies are established, resulting in a searchable database of more than 1000 competencies representing five domains, five skill levels, and more than 250 roles. Health Information Technology Competencies is available at no cost and supports role- or competency-based queries. Health Information Technology Competencies developers suggest its use for curriculum planning, job descriptions, and professional development.The Chamberlain College of Nursing informatics research team examined Health Information Technology Competencies for its possible application to our research and our curricular development, comparing it originally with the TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies and Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment of Level 3 and Level 4 tools, which examine informatics competencies at four levels of nursing practice. Additional analysis involved the 2015 Nursing Informatics: Scope and Standards of Practice. Informatics is a Health Information Technology Competencies domain, so clear delineation of nursing-informatics competencies was expected. Researchers found TIGER-based Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies and Nursing Informatics Competency Assessment of Level 3 and Level 4 differed from Health Information Technology Competencies 2016 in focus, definitions, ascribed competencies, and defined levels of expertise. When Health Information Technology Competencies 2017 was compared against the nursing informatics scope and standards, researchers found an increase in the number of informatics competencies but not to a significant degree. This is not surprising

Research Strategies for Biomedical and Health Informatics

PubMed Central

Kulikowski, Casimir A.; Bakken, Suzanne; de Lusignan, Simon; Kimura, Michio; Koch, Sabine; Mantas, John; Maojo, Victor; Marschollek, Michael; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando; Moen, Anne; Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Sarkar, Indra Neil; Leong, Tze Yun; McCray, Alexa T.

2017-01-01

Summary Background Medical informatics, or biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), has become an established scientific discipline. In all such disciplines there is a certain inertia to persist in focusing on well-established research areas and to hold on to well-known research methodologies rather than adopting new ones, which may be more appropriate. Objectives To search for answers to the following questions: What are research fields in informatics, which are not being currently adequately addressed, and which methodological approaches might be insufficiently used? Do we know about reasons? What could be consequences of change for research and for education? Methods Outstanding informatics scientists were invited to three panel sessions on this topic in leading international conferences (MIE 2015, Medinfo 2015, HEC 2016) in order to get their answers to these questions. Results A variety of themes emerged in the set of answers provided by the panellists. Some panellists took the theoretical foundations of the field for granted, while several questioned whether the field was actually grounded in a strong theoretical foundation. Panellists proposed a range of suggestions for new or improved approaches, methodologies, and techniques to enhance the BMHI research agenda. Conclusions The field of BMHI is on the one hand maturing as an academic community and intellectual endeavour. On the other hand vendor-supplied solutions may be too readily and uncritically accepted in health care practice. There is a high chance that BMHI will continue to flourish as an important discipline; its innovative interventions might then reach the original objectives of advancing science and improving health care outcomes. PMID:28119991

The Jubilee of Medical Informatics in Bosnia and Herzegovina - 20 Years Anniversary

PubMed Central

Masic, Izet

2009-01-01

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: NONE DECLARED Last two years, the health informatics profession celebrated five jubilees in Bosnia and Herzegovina: thirty years from the introduction of the first automatic manipulation of data, twenty years from the establishment of Society for Medical Informatics BiH, fifteen years from the establishment of the Scientific and Professional Journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina „Acta Informatica Medica“, fifteen years on from the establishment of the first Cathedra for Medical Informatics on Biomedical Faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and five years on from the introduction of the method of “Distance learning” in medical curriculum. The author of this article are eager to mark the importance of the above mentioned Anniversaries in the development of Health informatics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and have attempted, very briefly, to present the most significant events and persons with essential roles throughout this period. PMID:24133382

Evaluation of the Effects of Flipped Learning of a Nursing Informatics Course.

PubMed

Oh, Jina; Kim, Shin-Jeong; Kim, Sunghee; Vasuki, Rajaguru

2017-08-01

This study evaluated the effects of flipped learning in a nursing informatics course. Sixty-four undergraduate students attending a flipped learning nursing informatics course at a university in South Korea participated in this study in 2013. Of these, 43 students participated at University A, and 46 students participated at University B, as a comparison group. Three levels of Kirkpatrick's evaluation model were used: level one (the students' satisfaction), level two (achievement on the course outcomes), and level three (self-perceived nursing informatics competencies). Students of the flipped learning course reported positive effects above the middle degree of satisfaction (level one) and achieved the course outcomes (level two). In addition, self-perceived nursing informatics competencies (level three) of the flipped learning group were higher than those of the comparison group. A flipped learning nursing informatics course is an effective teaching strategy for preparing new graduate nurses in the clinical setting. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(8):477-483.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

Informatics competencies for nurse leaders: protocol for a scoping review.

PubMed

Kassam, Iman; Nagle, Lynn; Strudwick, Gillian

2017-12-14

Globally, health information technologies are now being used by nurses in a variety of settings. However, nurse leaders often do not have the necessary strategic and tactical informatics competencies to adequately ensure their effective adoption and use. Although informatics competencies and competency frameworks have been identified and developed, to date there has not been review or consolidation of the work completed in this area. In order to address this gap, a scoping review is being conducted. The objectives of this scoping review are to: (1) identify informatics competencies of relevance to nurse leaders, (2) identify frameworks or theories that have been used to develop informatics competencies for nurse leaders, (3) identify instruments used to assess the informatics competencies of nurse leaders and (4) examine the psychometric properties of identified instruments. Using the Arksey and O'Malley five-step framework, a literature review will be conducted using a scoping review methodology. The search will encompass academic and grey literature and include two primary databases and five secondary databases. Identified studies and documents will be independently screened for eligibility by two reviewers. Data from the studies and documents will be extracted and compiled into a chart. Qualitative data will be subject to a thematic analysis and descriptive statistics applied to the quantitative data. Ethical approval was not required for this study. Results will be used to inform a future study designed to validate an instrument used to evaluate informatics competencies for nurse leaders within a Canadian context. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

TU-CD-BRB-07: Identification of Associations Between Radiologist-Annotated Imaging Features and Genomic Alterations in Breast Invasive Carcinoma, a TCGA Phenotype Research Group Study

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rao, A; Net, J; Brandt, K

2015-06-15

Purpose: To determine associations between radiologist-annotated MRI features and genomic measurements in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Methods: 98 TCGA patients with BRCA were assessed by a panel of radiologists (TCGA Breast Phenotype Research Group) based on a variety of mass and non-mass features according to the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS). Batch corrected gene expression data was obtained from the TCGA Data Portal. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to assess correlations between categorical image features and tumor-derived genomic features (such as gene pathway activity, copy number and mutation characteristics). Image-derived features weremore » also correlated with estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) status. Multiple hypothesis correction was done using Benjamini-Hochberg FDR. Associations at an FDR of 0.1 were selected for interpretation. Results: ER status was associated with rim enhancement and peritumoral edema. PR status was associated with internal enhancement. Several components of the PI3K/Akt pathway were associated with rim enhancement as well as heterogeneity. In addition, several components of cell cycle regulation and cell division were associated with imaging characteristics.TP53 and GATA3 mutations were associated with lesion size. MRI features associated with TP53 mutation status were rim enhancement and peritumoral edema. Rim enhancement was associated with activity of RB1, PIK3R1, MAP3K1, AKT1,PI3K, and PIK3CA. Margin status was associated with HIF1A/ARNT, Ras/ GTP/PI3K, KRAS, and GADD45A. Axillary lymphadenopathy was associated with RB1 and BCL2L1. Peritumoral edema was associated with Aurora A/GADD45A, BCL2L1, CCNE1, and FOXA1. Heterogeneous internal nonmass enhancement was associated with EGFR, PI3K, AKT1, HF/MET, and EGFR/Erbb4/neuregulin 1. Diffuse nonmass enhancement was associated with HGF/MET/MUC20

A patient-focused framework integrating self-management and informatics.

PubMed

Knight, Elizabeth P; Shea, Kimberly

2014-03-01

This article introduces a framework to (a) guide chronic illness self-management interventions through the integration of self-management and nursing informatics, (b) focus self-management research, and (c) promote ethical, patient-empowering technology use by practicing nurses. Existing theory and research focusing on chronic illness, self-management, health-enabling technology, and nursing informatics were reviewed and examined and key concepts were identified. A care paradigm focusing on concordance, rather than compliance, served as the overall guiding principle. This framework identifies key relationships among self-management (patient behaviors), health force (patient characteristics), and patient-defined goals. The role of health-enabling technology supporting these relationships is explored in the context of nursing informatics. The Empowerment Informatics framework can guide intervention design and evaluation and support practicing nurses' ethical use of technology as part of self-management support. Nurses worldwide provide support to patients who are living with chronic illnesses. As pressures related to cost and access to care increase, technology-enabled self-management interventions will become increasingly common. This patient-focused framework can guide nursing practice using technology that prioritizes patient needs. © 2013 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Policy Implications of Education Informatics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, Jo Ann; O'Brien, Nancy P.

2010-01-01

Background/Context: This concluding article identifies the policy implications of education informatics and explores impacts of current copyright laws, legislative structures, publishing practices, and education organizations. Synthesizing the discussions in the preceding articles, this article highlights the importance of designing information…

Assessing the current state of dental informatics in saudi arabia: the new frontier.

PubMed

Al-Nasser, Lubna; Al-Ehaideb, Ali; Househ, Mowafa

2014-01-01

Dental informatics is an emerging field that has the potential to transform the dental profession. This study aims to summarize the current applications of dental informatics in Saudi Arabia and to identify the challenges facing expansion of dental informatics in the Saudi context. Search for published articles and specialized forum entries was conducted, as well as interviews with dental professionals familiar with the topic. Results indicated that digital radiography/analysis and administrative management of dental practice are the commonest applications used. Applications in Saudi dental education included: web-based learning systems, computer-based assessments and virtual technology for clinical skills' teaching. Patients' education software, electronic dental/oral health records and the potential of dental research output from electronic databases are yet to be achieved in Saudi Arabia. Challenges facing Saudi dental informatics include: lack of IT infrastructure/support, social acceptability and financial cost. Several initiatives are taken towards the research in dental informatics. Still, more investments are needed to fully achieve the potential of various application of informatics in dental education, practice and research.

Panel: Eco-informatics and decision making managing our natural resources

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gushing, J.B.; Wilson, T.; Martin, F.; Schnase, J.; Spengler, S.; Sugarbaker, L.; Pardo, T.

2006-01-01

This panel responds to the December 2004 workshop on Eco-Informatics and Decision Making [1], which addressed how informatics tools can help with better management of natural resources and policy making. The workshop was jointly sponsored by the NSF, NBII, NASA, and EPA. Workshop participants recommended that informatics research in four IT areas be funded: modeling and simulation, data quality, information integration and ontologies, and social and human aspects. Additionally, they recommend that funding agencies provide infrastructure and some changes in funding habits to assure cycles of innovation in the domain were addressed. This panel brings issues raised in that workshop to the attention of digital government researchers.

The Evolution of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom in Nursing Informatics.

PubMed

Ronquillo, Charlene; Currie, Leanne M; Rodney, Paddy

2016-01-01

The data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) model has been widely adopted in nursing informatics. In this article, we examine the evolution of DIKW in nursing informatics while incorporating critiques from other disciplines. This includes examination of assumptions of linearity and hierarchy and an exploration of the implicit philosophical grounding of the model. Two guiding questions are considered: (1) Does DIKW serve clinical information systems, nurses, or both? and (2) What level of theory does DIKW occupy? The DIKW model has been valuable in advancing the independent field of nursing informatics. We offer that if the model is to continue to move forward, its role and functions must be explicitly addressed.

Patient Outcomes as Transformative Mechanisms to Bring Health Information Technology Industry and Research Informatics Closer Together.

PubMed

Krive, Jacob

2015-01-01

Despite the fast pace of recent innovation within the health information technology and research informatics domains, there remains a large gap between research and academia, while interest in translating research innovations into implementations in the patient care settings is lacking. This is due to absence of common outcomes and performance measurement targets, with health information technology industry employing financial and operational measures and academia focusing on patient outcome concerns. The paper introduces methodology for and roadmap to introduction of common objectives as a way to encourage better collaboration between industry and academia using patient outcomes as a composite measure of demonstrated success from health information systems investments. Along the way, the concept of economics of health informatics, or "infonomics," is introduced to define a new way of mapping future technology investments in accordance with projected clinical impact.

The Future of Public Health Informatics: Alternative Scenarios and Recommended Strategies

PubMed Central

Edmunds, Margo; Thorpe, Lorna; Sepulveda, Martin; Bezold, Clem; Ross, David A.

2014-01-01

Background: In October 2013, the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) and Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) convened a multidisciplinary group of experts to evaluate forces shaping public health informatics (PHI) in the United States, with the aim of identifying upcoming challenges and opportunities. The PHI workshop was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its larger strategic planning process for public health and primary care. Workshop Context: During the two-day workshop, nine experts from the public and private sectors analyzed and discussed the implications of four scenarios regarding the United States economy, health care system, information technology (IT) sector, and their potential impacts on public health in the next 10 years, by 2023. Workshop participants considered the potential role of the public health sector in addressing population health challenges in each scenario, and then identified specific informatics goals and strategies needed for the sector to succeed in this role. Recommendations and Conclusion: Participants developed recommendations for the public health informatics field and for public health overall in the coming decade. These included the need to rely more heavily on intersectoral collaborations across public and private sectors, to improve data infrastructure and workforce capacity at all levels of the public health enterprise, to expand the evidence base regarding effectiveness of informatics-based public health initiatives, and to communicate strategically with elected officials and other key stakeholders regarding the potential for informatics-based solutions to have an impact on population health. PMID:25848630

Interdisciplinary innovations in biomedical and health informatics graduate education.

PubMed

Demiris, G

2007-01-01

Biomedical and health informatics (BHI) is a rapidly growing domain that relies on the active collaboration with diverse disciplines and professions. Educational initiatives in BHI need to prepare students with skills and competencies that will allow them to function within and even facilitate interdisciplinary teams (IDT). This paper describes an interdisciplinary educational approach introduced into a BHI graduate curriculum that aims to prepare informatics researchers to lead IDT research. A case study of the "gerontechnology" research track is presented which highlights how the curriculum fosters collaboration with and understanding of the disciplines of Nursing, Engineering, Computer Science, and Health Administration. Gerontechnology is a new interdisciplinary field that focuses on the use of technology to support aging. Its aim is to explore innovative ways to use information technology and develop systems that support independency and increase quality of life for senior citizens. As a result of a large research group that explores "smart home" technologies and the use of information technology, we integrated this new domain into the curriculum providing a platform for computer scientists, engineers, nurses and physicians to explore challenges and opportunities with our informatics students and faculty. The interdisciplinary educational model provides an opportunity for health informatics students to acquire the skills for communication and collaboration with other disciplines. Numerous graduate and postgraduate students have already participated in this initiative. The evaluation model of this approach is presented. Interdisciplinary educational models are required for health informatics graduate education. Such models need to be innovative and reflect the needs and trends in the domains of health care and information technology.

MIRASS: medical informatics research activity support system using information mashup network.

PubMed

Kiah, M L M; Zaidan, B B; Zaidan, A A; Nabi, Mohamed; Ibraheem, Rabiu

2014-04-01

The advancement of information technology has facilitated the automation and feasibility of online information sharing. The second generation of the World Wide Web (Web 2.0) enables the collaboration and sharing of online information through Web-serving applications. Data mashup, which is considered a Web 2.0 platform, plays an important role in information and communication technology applications. However, few ideas have been transformed into education and research domains, particularly in medical informatics. The creation of a friendly environment for medical informatics research requires the removal of certain obstacles in terms of search time, resource credibility, and search result accuracy. This paper considers three glitches that researchers encounter in medical informatics research; these glitches include the quality of papers obtained from scientific search engines (particularly, Web of Science and Science Direct), the quality of articles from the indices of these search engines, and the customizability and flexibility of these search engines. A customizable search engine for trusted resources of medical informatics was developed and implemented through data mashup. Results show that the proposed search engine improves the usability of scientific search engines for medical informatics. Pipe search engine was found to be more efficient than other engines.

It's Just (Academic) Business: A Use Case in Improving Informatics Operations with Business Intelligence.

PubMed

McIntosh, Leslie D; Zabarovskaya, Connie; Uhlmansiek, Mary

2015-01-01

Academic biomedical informatics cores are beholden to funding agencies, institutional administration, collaborating researchers, and external agencies for ongoing funding and support. Services provided and translational research outcomes are increasingly important to monitor, report and analyze, to demonstrate value provided to the organization and the greater scientific community. Thus, informatics operations are also business operations. As such, adopting business intelligence practices offers an opportunity to improve the efficiency of evaluation efforts while fulfilling reporting requirements. Organizing informatics development documentation, service requests, and work performed with adaptable tools have greatly facilitated these and related business activities within our informatics center. Through the identification and measurement of key performance indicators, informatics objectives and results are now quickly and nimbly assessed using dashboards. Acceptance of the informatics operation as a business venture and the adoption of business intelligence strategies has allowed for data-driven decision making, faster corrective action, and greater transparency for interested stakeholders.

Reducing Health Cost: Health Informatics and Knowledge Management as a Business and Communication Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gyampoh-Vidogah, Regina; Moreton, Robert; Sallah, David

Health informatics has the potential to improve the quality and provision of care while reducing the cost of health care delivery. However, health informatics is often falsely regarded as synonymous with information management (IM). This chapter (i) provides a clear definition and characteristic benefits of health informatics and information management in the context of health care delivery, (ii) identifies and explains the difference between health informatics (HI) and managing knowledge (KM) in relation to informatics business strategy and (iii) elaborates the role of information communication technology (ICT) KM environment. This Chapter further examines how KM can be used to improve health service informatics costs, and identifies the factors that could affect its implementation and explains some of the reasons driving the development of electronic health record systems. This will assist in avoiding higher costs and errors, while promoting the continued industrialisation of KM delivery across health care communities.

Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation of The Structural Designing of Medical Informatics Dynamic Encyclopedia

PubMed Central

Safdari, Reza; Shahmoradi, Leila; Hosseini-beheshti, Molouk-sadat; Nejad, Ahmadreza Farzaneh; Hosseiniravandi, Mohammad

2015-01-01

Introduction: Encyclopedias and their compilation have become so prevalent as a valid cultural medium in the world. The daily development of computer industry and the expansion of various sciences have made indispensable the compilation of electronic, specialized encyclopedias, especially the web-based ones. Materials and Methods: This is an applied-developmental study conducted in 2014. First, the main terms in the field of medical informatics were gathered using MeSH Online 2014 and the supplementary terms of each were determined, and then the tree diagram of the terms was drawn based on their relationship in MeSH. Based on the studies done by the researchers, the tree diagram of the encyclopedia was drawn with respect to the existing areas in this field, and the terms gathered were put in related domains. Findings: In MeSH, 75 preferred terms together with 249 supplementary ones were indexed. One of the informatics’ sub-branches is biomedical informatics and health which itself consists of three sub-divisions of bioinformatics, clinical informatics, and health informatics. Medical informatics which is a subdivision of clinical informatics has developed from the three fields of medical sciences, management and social sciences, and computational sciences and mathematics. Results and Discussion: Medical Informatics is created of confluence and fusion and applications of the three major scientific branches include health and biological sciences, social sciences and management sciences, computing and mathematical sciences, and according to that the structure of MeSH is weak for future development of Encyclopedia of Medical Informatics. PMID:26635440

An informatics research agenda to support precision medicine: seven key areas.

PubMed

Tenenbaum, Jessica D; Avillach, Paul; Benham-Hutchins, Marge; Breitenstein, Matthew K; Crowgey, Erin L; Hoffman, Mark A; Jiang, Xia; Madhavan, Subha; Mattison, John E; Nagarajan, Radhakrishnan; Ray, Bisakha; Shin, Dmitriy; Visweswaran, Shyam; Zhao, Zhongming; Freimuth, Robert R

2016-07-01

The recent announcement of the Precision Medicine Initiative by President Obama has brought precision medicine (PM) to the forefront for healthcare providers, researchers, regulators, innovators, and funders alike. As technologies continue to evolve and datasets grow in magnitude, a strong computational infrastructure will be essential to realize PM's vision of improved healthcare derived from personal data. In addition, informatics research and innovation affords a tremendous opportunity to drive the science underlying PM. The informatics community must lead the development of technologies and methodologies that will increase the discovery and application of biomedical knowledge through close collaboration between researchers, clinicians, and patients. This perspective highlights seven key areas that are in need of further informatics research and innovation to support the realization of PM. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Clinical value of miR-182-5p in lung squamous cell carcinoma: a study combining data from TCGA, GEO, and RT-qPCR validation.

PubMed

Luo, Jie; Shi, Ke; Yin, Shu-Ya; Tang, Rui-Xue; Chen, Wen-Jie; Huang, Lin-Zhen; Gan, Ting-Qing; Cai, Zheng-Wen; Chen, Gang

2018-04-10

MiR-182-5p, as a member of miRNA family, can be detected in lung cancer and plays an important role in lung cancer. To explore the clinical value of miR-182-5p in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) and to unveil the molecular mechanism of LUSC. The clinical value of miR-182-5p in LUSC was investigated by collecting and calculating data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Twelve prediction platforms were used to predict the target genes of miR-182-5p. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks and gene ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were used to explore the molecular mechanism of LUSC. The expression of miR-182-5p was significantly over-expressed in LUSC than in non-cancerous tissues, as evidenced by various approaches, including the TCGA database, GEO microarrays, RT-qPCR, and a comprehensive meta-analysis of 501 LUSC cases and 148 non-cancerous cases. Furthermore, a total of 81 potential target genes were chosen from the union of predicted genes and the TCGA database. GO and KEGG analyses demonstrated that the target genes are involved in pathways related to biological processes. PPIs revealed the relationships between these genes, with EPAS1, PRKCE, NR3C1, and RHOB being located in the center of the PPI network. MiR-182-5p upregulation greatly contributes to LUSC and may serve as a biomarker in LUSC.

Public Health, Population Health, and Epidemiology Informatics: Recent Research and Trends in the United States.

PubMed

Massoudi, B L; Chester, K G

2017-08-01

Objectives: To survey advances in public and population health and epidemiology informatics over the past 18 months. Methods: We conducted a review of English-language research works conducted in the domain of public and population health informatics and published in MEDLINE or Web of Science between January 2015 and June 2016 where information technology or informatics was a primary subject or main component of the study methodology. Selected articles were presented using a thematic analysis based on the 2011 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Public Health Informatics Agenda tracks as a typology. Results: Results are given within the context developed by Dixon et al., (2015) and key themes from the 2011 AMIA Public Health Informatics Agenda. Advances are presented within a socio-technical infrastructure undergirded by a trained, competent public health workforce, systems development to meet the business needs of the practice field, and research that evaluates whether those needs are adequately met. The ability to support and grow the infrastructure depends on financial sustainability. Conclusions: The fields of public health and population health informatics continue to grow, with the most notable developments focused on surveillance, workforce development, and linking to or providing clinical services, which encompassed population health informatics advances. Very few advances addressed the need to improve communication, coordination, and consistency with the field of informatics itself, as identified in the AMIA agenda. This will likely result in the persistence of the silos of public health information systems that currently exist. Future research activities need to aim toward a holistic approach of informatics across the enterprise. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

From big data analysis in the cloud to robotic pot drumming: tales from the Met Office Informatics Lab

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robinson, Niall; Tomlinson, Jacob; Prudden, Rachel; Hilson, Alex; Arribas, Alberto

2017-04-01

The Met Office Informatics Lab is a small multidisciplinary team which sits between science, technology and design. Our mission is simply "to make Met Office data useful" - a deliberately broad objective. Our prototypes often trial cutting edge technologies, and so far have included projects such as virtual reality data visualisation in the web browser, bots and natural language interfaces, and artificially intelligent weather warnings. In this talk we focus on our latest project, Jade, a big data analysis platform in the cloud. It is a powerful, flexible and simple to use implementation which makes extensive use of technologies such as Jupyter, Dask, containerisation, Infrastructure as Code, and auto-scaling. Crucially, Jade is flexible enough to be used for a diverse set of applications: it can present weather forecast information to meteorologists and allow climate scientists to analyse big data sets, but it is also effective for analysing non-geospatial data. As well as making data useful, the Informatics Lab also trials new working practises. In this presentation, we will talk about our experience of making a group like the Lab successful.

Information management and informatics: need for a modern pathology service.

PubMed

Jones, Rick; O'Connor, John

2004-05-01

Requirements for information technology in pathology now extend well beyond the provision of purely analytical data. With the aim of achieving seamless integration of laboratory data into the total clinical pathway, "informatics"--the art and science of turning data into useful information--is becoming increasingly important in laboratory medicine. Informatics is a powerful tool in pathology--whether in implementing processes for pathology modernization, introducing new diagnostic modalities (e.g. proteomics, genomics), providing timely and evidence-based disease management, or enabling best use of limited and often costly resources. Providing appropriate information to empowered and interested patients--which requires critical assessment of the ever-increasing volume of information available--can also benefit greatly from appropriate use of informatics. General trends in medical informatics are reflected in current priorities for laboratory medicine, including the need for unified electronic records, computerized order entry, data security and recovery, and audit. The increasing demands placed on pathology information systems in the context of wider developmental change in healthcare delivery are explored in this paper.

A current perspective on medical informatics and health sciences librarianship

PubMed Central

Perry, Gerald J.; Roderer, Nancy K.; Assar, Soraya

2005-01-01

Objective: The article offers a current perspective on medical informatics and health sciences librarianship. Narrative: The authors: (1) discuss how definitions of medical informatics have changed in relation to health sciences librarianship and the broader domain of information science; (2) compare the missions of health sciences librarianship and health sciences informatics, reviewing the characteristics of both disciplines; (3) propose a new definition of health sciences informatics; (4) consider the research agendas of both disciplines and the possibility that they have merged; and (5) conclude with some comments about actions and roles for health sciences librarians to flourish in the biomedical information environment of today and tomorrow. Summary: Boundaries are disappearing between the sources and types of and uses for health information managed by informaticians and librarians. Definitions of the professional domains of each have been impacted by these changes in information. Evolving definitions reflect the increasingly overlapping research agendas of both disciplines. Professionals in these disciplines are increasingly functioning collaboratively as “boundary spanners,” incorporating human factors that unite technology with health care delivery. PMID:15858622

A current perspective on medical informatics and health sciences librarianship.

PubMed

Perry, Gerald J; Roderer, Nancy K; Assar, Soraya

2005-04-01

The article offers a current perspective on medical informatics and health sciences librarianship. The authors: (1) discuss how definitions of medical informatics have changed in relation to health sciences librarianship and the broader domain of information science; (2) compare the missions of health sciences librarianship and health sciences informatics, reviewing the characteristics of both disciplines; (3) propose a new definition of health sciences informatics; (4) consider the research agendas of both disciplines and the possibility that they have merged; and (5) conclude with some comments about actions and roles for health sciences librarians to flourish in the biomedical information environment of today and tomorrow. Boundaries are disappearing between the sources and types of and uses for health information managed by informaticians and librarians. Definitions of the professional domains of each have been impacted by these changes in information. Evolving definitions reflect the increasingly overlapping research agendas of both disciplines. Professionals in these disciplines are increasingly functioning collaboratively as "boundary spanners," incorporating human factors that unite technology with health care delivery.

Quo Vadis, Informatics Education?--Towards a More Up-to-Date Informatics Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zsakó, László; Horváth, Gyozo

2017-01-01

Informatics education has been in a cul-de-sac for several years (not only in Hungary), being less and less able to meet the needs of the industry and higher education. In addition, the latest PISA survey shows that--to put it a little strongly--the majority of the x-, y- and z generations are digital illiterates. The aim of this paper to examine…

Creativity as a Key Driver for Designing Context Sensitive Health Informatics.

PubMed

Zhou, Chunfang; Nøhr, Christian

2017-01-01

In order to face the increasing challenges of complexity and uncertainty in practice of health care, this paper aims to discuss how creativity can contribute to design new technologies in health informatics systems. It will firstly introduce the background highlighting creativity as a missing element in recent studies on context sensitive health informatics. Secondly, the concept of creativity and its relationship with activities of technology design will be discussed from a socio-culture perspective. This will be thirdly followed by understanding the roles of creativity in designing new health informatics technologies for meeting needs of high context sensitivity. Finally, a series of potential strategies will be suggested to improve creativity among technology designers working in healthcare industries. Briefly, this paper innovatively bridges two areas studies on creativity and context sensitive health informatics by issues of technology design that also indicates its important significances for future research.

Materials Informatics: Statistical Modeling in Material Science.

PubMed

Yosipof, Abraham; Shimanovich, Klimentiy; Senderowitz, Hanoch

2016-12-01

Material informatics is engaged with the application of informatic principles to materials science in order to assist in the discovery and development of new materials. Central to the field is the application of data mining techniques and in particular machine learning approaches, often referred to as Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) modeling, to derive predictive models for a variety of materials-related "activities". Such models can accelerate the development of new materials with favorable properties and provide insight into the factors governing these properties. Here we provide a comparison between medicinal chemistry/drug design and materials-related QSAR modeling and highlight the importance of developing new, materials-specific descriptors. We survey some of the most recent QSAR models developed in materials science with focus on energetic materials and on solar cells. Finally we present new examples of material-informatic analyses of solar cells libraries produced from metal oxides using combinatorial material synthesis. Different analyses lead to interesting physical insights as well as to the design of new cells with potentially improved photovoltaic parameters. © 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

History of Romanian Medical Informatics: Learning from the Past to Reshape the Future.

PubMed

Mihalas, George I; Stoicu-Tivadar, Lacramioara

2018-04-22

 The paper presents a review of the history of medical informatics in Romania, starting from the pioneering works, relating the present, and foreseeing the future.  Major milestones of the development of this field have not been simply enumerated, but described within the specific socio-political frame, grasping the entire context over the last four decades in Romania. Two main perspectives have been traced: education and training in medical informatics and implementations in healthcare.  Four distinctive historical periods are identified and the major events of each period are described in a critical manner. The history of the Romanian Society of Medical Informatics is presented in a separate chapter. The last section is dedicated to the present state of the field in Romania.  The history of Romanian Medical Informatics spans many years and is rich in content. The Romanian Society of Medical Informatics is mainly the result of the efforts undertaken by an enthusiastic and sound professional community, trying to continue the tradition, to achieve new goals, and to work as an active member of the international biomedical/health informatics community. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

Understanding the Essence of Caring from the Lived Experiences of Filipino Informatics Nurses.

PubMed

Macabasag, Romeo Luis A; Diño, Michael Joseph S

2018-04-01

Caring is considered a unique concept in nursing because it subsumes all intrinsic attributes of nursing as a human helping discipline. Scholars have argued that caring is usually seen as an encounter between nurses and patients, but how about nurses with minimal or absent nurse-patient encounters, like informatics nurses? In this study, we explored the meaning of the phenomenon of caring to present lived experiences of caring, namely caring as actions of coming in between; caring as expressed within embodied relations; and caring and the path traversed by informatics nurses. The informatics nurse-cyborg-patient triad speaks of Filipino informatics nurses' insightful understanding of the phenomenon of caring.

Open Access Publishing in the Field of Medical Informatics.

PubMed

Kuballa, Stefanie

2017-05-01

The open access paradigm has become an important approach in today's information and communication society. Funders and governments in different countries stipulate open access publications of funded research results. Medical informatics as part of the science, technology and medicine disciplines benefits from many research funds, such as National Institutes of Health in the US, Wellcome Trust in UK, German Research Foundation in Germany and many more. In this study an overview of the current open access programs and conditions of major journals in the field of medical informatics is presented. It was investigated whether there are suitable options and how they are shaped. Therefore all journals in Thomson Reuters Web of Science that were listed in the subject category "Medical Informatics" in 2014 were examined. An Internet research was conducted by investigating the journals' websites. It was reviewed whether journals offer an open access option with a subsequent check of conditions as for example the type of open access, the fees and the licensing. As a result all journals in the field of medical informatics that had an impact factor in 2014 offer an open access option. A predominantly consistent pricing range was determined with an average fee of 2.248 € and a median fee of 2.207 €. The height of a journals' open access fee did not correlate with the height of its Impact Factor. Hence, medical informatics journals have recognized the trend of open access publishing, though the vast majority of them are working with the hybrid method. Hybrid open access may however lead to problems in questions of double dipping and the often stipulated gold open access.

Technological Ecosystems in Health Informatics: A Brief Review Article.

PubMed

Wu, Zhongmei; Zhang, Xiuxiu; Chen, Ying; Zhang, Yan

2016-09-01

The existing models of information technology in health sciences have full scope of betterment and extension. The high demand pressures, public expectations, advanced platforms all collectively contribute towards hospital environment, which has to be kept in kind while designing of advanced technological ecosystem for information technology. Moreover, for the smooth conduct and operation of information system advanced management avenues are also essential in hospitals. It is the top priority of every hospital to deal with the essential needs of care for patients within the available resources of human and financial outputs. In these situations of high demand, the technological ecosystems in health informatics come in to play and prove its importance and role. The present review article would enlighten all these aspects of these ecosystems in hospital management and health care informatics. We searched the electronic database of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PubMed for clinical controlled trials, pre-clinical studies reporting utilizaiono of ecosysyem advances in health information technology. The primary outcome of eligible studies included confirmation of importance and role of advances ecosystems in health informatics. It was observed that technological ecosystems are the backbone of health informatics. Advancements in technological ecosystems are essential for proper functioning of health information system in clinical setting.

Wellbeing Understanding in High Quality Healthcare Informatics and Telepractice.

PubMed

Fiorini, Rodolfo A; De Giacomo, Piero; L'Abate, Luciano

2016-01-01

The proper use of healthcare informatics technology and multidimensional conceptual clarity are fundamental to create and boost outstanding clinical and telepractice results. Avoiding even terminology ambiguities is mandatory for high quality of care service. For instance, well-being or wellbeing is a different way to write the same concept only, or there is a good deal of ambiguity around the meanings of these terms the way they are written. In personal health, healthcare and healthcare informatics, this kind of ambiguity and lack of conceptual clarity has been called out repeatedly over the past 50 years. It is time to get the right, terse scenario. We present a brief review to develop and achieve ultimate wellbeing understanding for practical high quality healthcare informatics and telepractice application. This article presents an innovative point of view on deeper wellbeing understanding towards its increased clinical effective application.

The Effectiveness of Hands-on Health Informatics Skills Exercises in the Multidisciplinary Smart Home Healthcare and Health Informatics Training Laboratories.

PubMed

Sapci, A H; Sapci, H A

2017-10-01

This article aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of newly established innovative smart home healthcare and health informatics laboratories, and a novel laboratory course that focuses on experiential health informatics training, and determine students' self-confidence to operate wireless home health monitoring devices before and after the hands-on laboratory course. Two web-based pretraining and posttraining questionnaires were sent to 64 students who received hands-on training with wireless remote patient monitoring devices in smart home healthcare and health informatics laboratories. All 64 students completed the pretraining survey (100% response rate), and 49 students completed the posttraining survey (76% response rate). The quantitative data analysis showed that 95% of students had an interest in taking more hands-on laboratory courses. Sixty-seven percent of students had no prior experience with medical image, physiological data acquisition, storage, and transmission protocols. After the hands-on training session, 75.51% of students expressed improved confidence about training patients to measure blood pressure monitor using wireless devices. Ninety percent of students preferred to use a similar experiential approach in their future learning experience. Additionally, the qualitative data analysis demonstrated that students were expecting to have more courses with hands-on exercises and integration of technology-enabled delivery and patient monitoring concepts into the curriculum. This study demonstrated that the multidisciplinary smart home healthcare and health informatics training laboratories and the hands-on exercises improved students' technology adoption rates and their self-confidence in using wireless patient monitoring devices. Schattauer GmbH Stuttgart.

About the Beginnings of Medical Informatics in Europe

PubMed Central

Roger France, Francis

2014-01-01

The term “Informatics” was created in 1962 from two words, information and automatic, and covers all techniques, information concepts and applications of computers. Among them, medicine is the field where we will describe some factors of development in Europe since the late sixties. It took some time for obtaining the acceptance of this new terminology worldwide, but today medical informatics is a well defined discipline which had a tremendous development last decades. This paper tries to recall the context and events from the beginning of medical informatics in Europe. PMID:24648614

Visualization of the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics Publications over the Last 25 Years.

PubMed

Yergens, D W; Tam-Tham, H; Minty, E P

2016-06-30

The last 25 years have been a period of innovation in the area of medical informatics. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has published, every year for the last quarter century, the Yearbook of Medical Informatics, collating selected papers from various journals in an attempt to provide a summary of the academic medical informatics literature. The objective of this paper is to visualize the evolution of the medical informatics field over the last 25 years according to the frequency of word occurrences in the papers published in the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics. A literature review was conducted examining the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics between 1992 and 2015. These references were collated into a reference manager application to examine the literature using keyword searches, word clouds, and topic clustering. The data was considered in its entirety, as well as segregated into 3 time periods to examine the evolution of main trends over time. Several methods were used, including word clouds, cluster maps, and custom developed web-based information dashboards. The literature search resulted in a total of 1210 references published in the Yearbook, of which 213 references were excluded, resulting in 997 references for visualization. Overall, we found that publications were more technical and methods-oriented between 1992 and 1999; more clinically and patient-oriented between 2000 and 2009; and noted the emergence of "big data", decision support, and global health in the past decade between 2010 and 2015. Dashboards were additionally created to show individual reference data, as well as, aggregated information. Medical informatics is a vast and expanding area with new methods and technologies being researched, implemented, and evaluated. Determining visualization approaches that enhance our understanding of literature is an active area of research, and like medical informatics, is constantly evolving as new software and algorithms

Innovative designs for the smart ICU: Part 3: Advanced ICU informatics.

PubMed

Halpern, Neil A

2014-04-01

This third and final installment of this series on innovative designs for the smart ICU addresses the steps involved in conceptualizing, actualizing, using, and maintaining the advanced ICU informatics infrastructure and systems. The smart ICU comprehensively and electronically integrates the patient in the ICU with all aspects of care, displays data in a variety of formats, converts data to actionable information, uses data proactively to enhance patient safety, and monitors the ICU environment to facilitate patient care and ICU management. The keys to success in this complex informatics design process include an understanding of advanced informatics concepts, sophisticated planning, installation of a robust infrastructure capable of both connectivity and interoperability, and implementation of middleware solutions that provide value. Although new technologies commonly appear compelling, they are also complicated and challenging to incorporate within existing or evolving hospital informatics systems. Therefore, careful analysis, deliberate testing, and a phased approach to the implementation of innovative technologies are necessary to achieve the multilevel solutions of the smart ICU.

Twenty Years of Society of Medical Informatics of B&H and the Journal Acta Informatica Medica

PubMed Central

Masic, Izet

2012-01-01

In 2012, Health/Medical informatics profession celebrates five jubilees in Bosnia and Herzegovina: a) Thirty five years from the introduction of the first automatic manipulation of data; b) Twenty five years from establishing Society for Medical Informatics BiH; c) Twenty years from establishing scientific and professional journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina „Acta Informatica Medica“; d) Twenty years from establishing first Cathdra for Medical Informatics on biomedical faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and e) Ten years from the introduction of “Distance learning” in medical curriculum. All of the five mentioned activities in the area of Medical informatics had special importance and gave appropriate contribution in the development of Health/Medical informatics in Bosnia And Herzegovina. PMID:23322947

Twenty years of society of medical informatics of b&h and the journal acta informatica medica.

PubMed

Masic, Izet

2012-03-01

In 2012, Health/Medical informatics profession celebrates five jubilees in Bosnia and Herzegovina: a) Thirty five years from the introduction of the first automatic manipulation of data; b) Twenty five years from establishing Society for Medical Informatics BiH; c) Twenty years from establishing scientific and professional journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia and Herzegovina "Acta Informatica Medica"; d) Twenty years from establishing first Cathdra for Medical Informatics on biomedical faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina and e) Ten years from the introduction of "Distance learning" in medical curriculum. All of the five mentioned activities in the area of Medical informatics had special importance and gave appropriate contribution in the development of Health/Medical informatics in Bosnia And Herzegovina.

A Nursing Informatics Research Agenda for 2008–18: Contextual Influences and Key Components

PubMed Central

Bakken, Suzanne; Stone, Patricia W.; Larson, Elaine L.

2008-01-01

The context for nursing informatics research has changed significantly since the National Institute of Nursing Research-funded Nursing Informatics Research Agenda was published in 1993 and the Delphi study of nursing informatics research priorities reported a decade ago. The authors focus on three specific aspects of context - genomic health care, shifting research paradigms, and social (Web 2.0) technologies - that must be considered in formulating a nursing informatics research agenda. These influences are illustrated using the significant issue of healthcare associated infections (HAI). A nursing informatics research agenda for 2008–18 must expand users of interest to include interdisciplinary researchers; build upon the knowledge gained in nursing concept representation to address genomic and environmental data; guide the reengineering of nursing practice; harness new technologies to empower patients and their caregivers for collaborative knowledge development; develop user-configurable software approaches that support complex data visualization, analysis, and predictive modeling; facilitate the development of middle-range nursing informatics theories; and encourage innovative evaluation methodologies that attend to human-computer interface factors and organizational context. PMID:18922269

A survey of public health and consumer health informatics programmes and courses in Canadian universities and colleges.

PubMed

Arocha, Jose F; Hoffman-Goetz, Laurie

2012-12-01

As information technology becomes more widely used by people for health-care decisions, training in consumer and public health informatics will be important for health practitioners working directly with the public. Using information from 74 universities and colleges across Canada, we searched websites and online calendars for programmes (undergraduate, graduate) regarding availability and scope of education in programmes, courses and topics geared to public health and/or consumer health informatics. Of the 74 institutions searched, 31 provided some content relevant to health informatics (HI) and 8 institutions offered full HI-related programmes. Of these 8 HI programmes, only 1 course was identified with content relevant to public health informatics and 1 with content about consumer health informatics. Some institutions (n  =  22) - which do not offer HI-degree programmes - provide health informatics-related courses, including one on consumer health informatics. We found few programmes, courses or topic areas within courses in Canadian universities and colleges that focus on consumer or public health informatics education. Given the increasing emphasis on personal responsibility for health and health-care decision-making, skills training for health professionals who help consumers navigate the Internet should be considered in health informatics education.

Citation analysis in journal rankings: medical informatics in the library and information science literature.

PubMed Central

Vishwanatham, R

1998-01-01

Medical informatics is an interdisciplinary field. Medical informatics articles will be found in the literature of various disciplines including library and information science publications. The purpose of this study was to provide an objectively ranked list of journals that publish medical informatics articles relevant to library and information science. Library Literature, Library and Information Science Abstracts, and Social Science Citation Index were used to identify articles published on the topic of medical informatics and to identify a ranked list of journals. This study also used citation analysis to identify the most frequently cited journals relevant to library and information science. PMID:9803294

Utility of miR‑133a‑3p as a diagnostic indicator for hepatocellular carcinoma: An investigation combined with GEO, TCGA, meta‑analysis and bioinformatics.

PubMed

Liang, Hai-Wei; Yang, Xia; Wen, Dong-Yue; Gao, Li; Zhang, Xiang-Yu; Ye, Zhi-Hua; Luo, Jie; Li, Zu-Yun; He, Yun; Pang, Yu-Yan; Chen, Gang

2018-01-01

Increasing evidence has demonstrated that microRNA (miR)‑133a‑3p is an important regulator of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, the diagnostic role of miR‑133a‑3p in HCC, and the potential functional pathways, were both explored based on publicly available data. Eligible microarray datasets were collected from NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and ArrayExpress database. The data related to HCC and matched adjacent normal tissues were also downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Published studies reporting the association between miR‑133a‑3p expression and HCC were reviewed from multiple databases. By combining the data derived from three sources (GEO, TCGA and published studies), the authors analyzed the comprehensive relationship between miR‑133a‑3p expression and clinicopathological features of HCC. Eventually, putative targets of miR‑133a‑3p in HCC were selected for further bioinformatics prediction. A total of eight published microarray datasets were gathered, and the pooled results demonstrated that the expression of miR‑133a‑3p in the tumor group was lower than that in normal groups [standardized mean difference (SMD)=‑0.54; 95% confidence interval (CI), ‑0.74 to ‑0.35; P<0.001]. Consistently, the level of miR‑133a‑1 in HCC was reduced markedly compared to normal tissues (P<0.001) based on TCGA data, and the AUC value of low miR‑133a‑1 expression for HCC diagnosis was 0.670 (P<0.001). Furthermore, the combined SMD of all datasets (GEO, TCGA and literature) suggested that significant difference was observed between the HCC group and the normal control group, and lower miR‑133a‑3p expression in HCC group was noted (SMD=‑0.69; 95% CI, ‑1.10 to ‑0.29; P=0.001). In addition, the authors discovered five key genes of the calcium signaling pathway (NOS1, ADRA1A, ADRA1B, ADRA1D and TBXA2R) that may probably be targeted by miR‑133a‑3p in HCC. The study reveals that miR‑133a‑3p

It’s Just (Academic) Business: A Use Case in Improving Informatics Operations with Business Intelligence

PubMed Central

McIntosh, Leslie D.; Zabarovskaya, Connie; Uhlmansiek, Mary

2015-01-01

Academic biomedical informatics cores are beholden to funding agencies, institutional administration, collaborating researchers, and external agencies for ongoing funding and support. Services provided and translational research outcomes are increasingly important to monitor, report and analyze, to demonstrate value provided to the organization and the greater scientific community. Thus, informatics operations are also business operations. As such, adopting business intelligence practices offers an opportunity to improve the efficiency of evaluation efforts while fulfilling reporting requirements. Organizing informatics development documentation, service requests, and work performed with adaptable tools have greatly facilitated these and related business activities within our informatics center. Through the identification and measurement of key performance indicators, informatics objectives and results are now quickly and nimbly assessed using dashboards. Acceptance of the informatics operation as a business venture and the adoption of business intelligence strategies has allowed for data-driven decision making, faster corrective action, and greater transparency for interested stakeholders. PMID:26306252

Milestones: Critical Elements in Clinical Informatics Fellowship Programs

PubMed Central

Lehmann, Christoph U.; Munger, Benson

2016-01-01

Summary Background Milestones refer to points along a continuum of a competency from novice to expert. Resident and fellow assessment and program evaluation processes adopted by the ACGME include the mandate that programs report the educational progress of residents and fellows twice annually utilizing Milestones developed by a specialty specific ACGME working group of experts. Milestones in clinical training programs are largely unmapped to specific assessment tools. Residents and fellows are mainly assessed using locally derived assessment instruments. These assessments are then reviewed by the Clinical Competency Committee which assigns and reports trainee ratings using the specialty specific reporting Milestones. Methods and Results The challenge and opportunity facing the nascent specialty of Clinical Informatics is how to optimally utilize this framework across a growing number of accredited fellowships. The authors review how a mapped milestone framework, in which each required sub-competency is mapped to a single milestone assessment grid, can enable the use of milestones for multiple uses including individualized learning plans, fellow assessments, and program evaluation. Furthermore, such a mapped strategy will foster the ability to compare fellow progress within and between Clinical Informatics Fellowships in a structured and reliable fashion. Clinical Informatics currently has far less variability across programs and thus could easily utilize a more tightly defined set of milestones with a clear mapping to sub-competencies. This approach would enable greater standardization of assessment instruments and processes across programs while allowing for variability in how those sub-competencies are taught. Conclusions A mapped strategy for Milestones offers significant advantages for Clinical Informatics programs. PMID:27081414

Medical informatics education: an alternative pathway for training informationists

PubMed Central

Hersh, William

2002-01-01

Recognition of the growing complexity of health information needs has led to a call for the creation of a new health care professional, the informationist. Controversy exists as to the role of such individuals and what their training should be. A library science degree, augmented with clinical background or experience, is one pathway. Another to consider is training in medical informatics. With the right coursework, individuals trained in medical informatics should be equally well qualified to assume the role of informationists. PMID:11838463

Enabling comparative effectiveness research with informatics: show me the data!

PubMed

Safdar, Nabile M; Siegel, Eliot; Erickson, Bradley J; Nagy, Paul

2011-09-01

Both outcomes researchers and informaticians are concerned with information and data. As such, some of the central challenges to conducting successful comparative effectiveness research can be addressed with informatics solutions. Specific informatics solutions which address how data in comparative effectiveness research are enriched, stored, shared, and analyzed are reviewed. Imaging data can be made more quantitative, uniform, and structured for researchers through the use of lexicons and structured reporting. Secure and scalable storage of research data is enabled through data warehouses and cloud services. There are a number of national efforts to help researchers share research data and analysis tools. There is a diverse arsenal of informatics tools designed to meet the needs of comparative effective researchers. Copyright © 2011 AUR. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Visualization of the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics Publications over the Last 25 Years

PubMed Central

Tam-Tham, H.; Minty, E. P.

2016-01-01

Summary Background The last 25 years have been a period of innovation in the area of medical informatics. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has published, every year for the last quarter century, the Yearbook of Medical Informatics, collating selected papers from various journals in an attempt to provide a summary of the academic medical informatics literature. The objective of this paper is to visualize the evolution of the medical informatics field over the last 25 years according to the frequency of word occurrences in the papers published in the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics. Methods A literature review was conducted examining the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics between 1992 and 2015. These references were collated into a reference manager application to examine the literature using keyword searches, word clouds, and topic clustering. The data was considered in its entirety, as well as segregated into 3 time periods to examine the evolution of main trends over time. Several methods were used, including word clouds, cluster maps, and custom developed web-based information dashboards. Results The literature search resulted in a total of 1210 references published in the Yearbook, of which 213 references were excluded, resulting in 997 references for visualization. Overall, we found that publications were more technical and methods-oriented between 1992 and 1999; more clinically and patient-oriented between 2000 and 2009; and noted the emergence of “big data”, decision support, and global health in the past decade between 2010 and 2015. Dashboards were additionally created to show individual reference data, as well as, aggregated information. Conclusion Medical informatics is a vast and expanding area with new methods and technologies being researched, implemented, and evaluated. Determining visualization approaches that enhance our understanding of literature is an active area of research, and like medical informatics, is

Health care transformation through collaboration on open-source informatics projects: integrating a medical applications platform, research data repository, and patient summarization.

PubMed

Klann, Jeffrey G; McCoy, Allison B; Wright, Adam; Wattanasin, Nich; Sittig, Dean F; Murphy, Shawn N

2013-05-30

The Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program seeks to conquer well-understood challenges in medical informatics through breakthrough research. Two SHARP centers have found alignment in their methodological needs: (1) members of the National Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision-making (NCCD) have developed knowledge bases to support problem-oriented summarizations of patient data, and (2) Substitutable Medical Apps, Reusable Technologies (SMART), which is a platform for reusable medical apps that can run on participating platforms connected to various electronic health records (EHR). Combining the work of these two centers will ensure wide dissemination of new methods for synthesized views of patient data. Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2) is an NIH-funded clinical research data repository platform in use at over 100 sites worldwide. By also working with a co-occurring initiative to SMART-enabling i2b2, we can confidently write one app that can be used extremely broadly. Our goal was to facilitate development of intuitive, problem-oriented views of the patient record using NCCD knowledge bases that would run in any EHR. To do this, we developed a collaboration between the two SHARPs and an NIH center, i2b2. First, we implemented collaborative tools to connect researchers at three institutions. Next, we developed a patient summarization app using the SMART platform and a previously validated NCCD problem-medication linkage knowledge base derived from the National Drug File-Reference Terminology (NDF-RT). Finally, to SMART-enable i2b2, we implemented two new Web service "cells" that expose the SMART application programming interface (API), and we made changes to the Web interface of i2b2 to host a "carousel" of SMART apps. We deployed our SMART-based, NDF-RT-derived patient summarization app in this SMART-i2b2 container. It displays a problem-oriented view of medications and presents a line-graph display of

PREFACE: International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics 2007 (IW-SMI 2007)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hukushima, Koji; Kabashima, Yoshiyuki; Nishimori, Hidetoshi; Tanaka, Toshiyuki

2007-06-01

Information theory and statistical mechanics have numerous fundamental similarities. One typical example is the concept of entropy, which is shared by both fields. However, despite this proximity, these fields have developed almost independently of each other and in the absence of extensive collaboration. Things are now changing: in recent years we have seen an increase in the number of breakthroughs in research activities that have employed the standard knowledge or techniques from one discipline and applied them to another. This implies an importance, as a methodology for conducting research, in the appropriate utilization of the underlying structural similarities between the two fields. Researchers have shown rapidly increasing interest in cross-disciplinary research initiatives. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the relatively independent development histories of these fields, there are still barriers between them that hinder the exchange of information and efficient collaborative activities. The International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics (IW-SMI2007) has been organized in response to this situation. This workshop, held at Pa-ru-ru Plaza Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan, 16-19 September 2007, and sponsored by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas 'Deepening and Expansion of Statistical Mechanical Informatics (DEX-SMI)' (Head investigator: Yoshiyuki Kabashima, Tokyo Institute of Technology) (Project WWW page: http://dex-smi.sp.dis.titech.ac.jp/DEX-SMI), was intended to provide leading researchers with strong interdisciplinary interests in informatics and statistical mechanics with the opportunity to engage in intensive discussions. The aim of the workshop was to form a solid basis for overcoming the barriers that exist between the two fields by sharing the well-established expertise in each field, to discuss possible future directions, and to offer researchers the opportunity to exchange ideas that may lead to joint research initiatives

The Chief Clinical Informatics Officer (CCIO): AMIA Task Force Report on CCIO Knowledge, Education, and Skillset Requirements.

PubMed

Kannry, Joseph; Sengstack, Patricia; Thyvalikakath, Thankam Paul; Poikonen, John; Middleton, Blackford; Payne, Thomas; Lehmann, Christoph U

2016-01-01

The emerging operational role of the "Chief Clinical Informatics Officer" (CCIO) remains heterogeneous with individuals deriving from a variety of clinical settings and backgrounds. The CCIO is defined in title, responsibility, and scope of practice by local organizations. The term encompasses the more commonly used Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) and Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO) as well as the rarely used Chief Pharmacy Informatics Officer (CPIO) and Chief Dental Informatics Officer (CDIO). The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) identified a need to better delineate the knowledge, education, skillsets, and operational scope of the CCIO in an attempt to address the challenges surrounding the professional development and the hiring processes of CCIOs. An AMIA task force developed knowledge, education, and operational skillset recommendations for CCIOs focusing on the common core aspect and describing individual differences based on Clinical Informatics focus. The task force concluded that while the role of the CCIO currently is diverse, a growing body of Clinical Informatics and increasing certification efforts are resulting in increased homogeneity. The task force advised that 1.) To achieve a predictable and desirable skillset, the CCIO must complete clearly defined and specified Clinical Informatics education and training. 2.) Future education and training must reflect the changing body of knowledge and must be guided by changing day-to-day informatics challenges. A better defined and specified education and skillset for all CCIO positions will motivate the CCIO workforce and empower them to perform the job of a 21st century CCIO. Formally educated and trained CCIOs will provide a competitive advantage to their respective enterprise by fully utilizing the power of Informatics science.

Enabling Long-Term Oceanographic Research: Changing Data Practices, Information Management Strategies and Informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, K. S.; Chandler, C. L.

2008-12-01

Data management and informatics research are in a state of change in terms of data practices, information strategies, and roles. New ways of thinking about data and data management can facilitate interdisciplinary global ocean science. To meet contemporary expectations for local data use and reuse by a variety of audiences, collaborative strategies involving diverse teams of information professionals are developing. Such changes are fostering the growth of information infrastructures that support multi-scale sampling, data integration, and nascent networks of data repositories. In this retrospective, two examples of oceanographic projects incorporating data management in partnership with long-term science programs are reviewed: the Palmer Station Long-Term Ecological Research program (Palmer LTER) and the United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (US JGOFS). Lessons learned - short-term and long-term - from a decade of data management within these two communities will be presented. A conceptual framework called Ocean Informatics provides one example for managing the complexities inherent to sharing oceanographic data. Elements are discussed that address the economies-of-scale as well as the complexities-of-scale pertinent to a broad vision of information management and scientific research.

Biomedical and health informatics education and research at the Information Technology Institute in Egypt.

PubMed

Hussein, R; Khalifa, A

2011-01-01

During the last decade, Egypt has experienced a revolution in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that has had a corresponding impact on the field of healthcare. Since 1993, the Information Technology Institute (ITI) has been leading the development of the Information Technology (IT) professional training and education in Egypt to produce top quality IT professionals who are considered now the backbone of the IT revolution in Egypt. For the past five years, ITI has been adopting the objective of building high caliber health professionals who can effectively serve the ever-growing information society. Academic links have been established with internationally renowned universities, e.g., Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in US, University of Leipzig in Germany, in addition those with the Egyptian Fellowship Board in order to enrich ITI Medical Informatics Education and Research. The ITI Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) education and training programs target fresh graduates as well as life-long learners. Therefore, the program's learning objectives are framed within the context of the four specialization tracks: Healthcare Management (HCM), Biomedical Informatics Research (BMIR), Bioinformatics Professional (BIP), and Healthcare Professional (HCP). The ITI BMHI research projects tackle a wide-range of current challenges in this field, such as knowledge management in healthcare, providing tele-consultation services for diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases for underserved regions in Egypt, and exploring the cultural and educational aspects of Nanoinformatics. Since 2006, ITI has been positively contributing to develop the discipline of BMHI in Egypt in order to support improved healthcare services.

Open source bioimage informatics for cell biology.

PubMed

Swedlow, Jason R; Eliceiri, Kevin W

2009-11-01

Significant technical advances in imaging, molecular biology and genomics have fueled a revolution in cell biology, in that the molecular and structural processes of the cell are now visualized and measured routinely. Driving much of this recent development has been the advent of computational tools for the acquisition, visualization, analysis and dissemination of these datasets. These tools collectively make up a new subfield of computational biology called bioimage informatics, which is facilitated by open source approaches. We discuss why open source tools for image informatics in cell biology are needed, some of the key general attributes of what make an open source imaging application successful, and point to opportunities for further operability that should greatly accelerate future cell biology discovery.

Open source bioimage informatics for cell biology

PubMed Central

Swedlow, Jason R.; Eliceiri, Kevin W.

2009-01-01

Significant technical advances in imaging, molecular biology and genomics have fueled a revolution in cell biology, in that the molecular and structural processes of the cell are now visualized and measured routinely. Driving much of this recent development has been the advent of computational tools for the acquisition, visualization, analysis and dissemination of these datasets. These tools collectively make up a new subfield of computational biology called bioimage informatics, which is facilitated by open source approaches. We discuss why open source tools for image informatics in cell biology are needed, some of the key general attributes of what make an open source imaging application successful, and point to opportunities for further operability that should greatly accelerate future cell biology discovery. PMID:19833518

Job Profiles of Biomedical Informatics Graduates. Results of a Graduate Survey.

PubMed

Ammenwerth, E; Hackl, W O

2015-01-01

Biomedical informatics programs exist in many countries. Some analyses of the skills needed and of recommendations for curricular content for such programs have been published. However, not much is known of the job profiles and job careers of their graduates. To analyse the job profiles and job careers of 175 graduates of the biomedical informatics bachelor and master program of the Tyrolean university UMIT. Survey of all biomedical informatics students who graduated from UMIT between 2001 and 2013. Information is available for 170 graduates. Eight percent of graduates are male. Of all bachelor graduates, 86% started a master program. Of all master graduates, 36% started a PhD. The job profiles are quite diverse: at the time of the survey, 35% of all master graduates worked in the health IT industry, 24% at research institutions, 9% in hospitals, 9% as medical doctors, 17% as informaticians outside the health care sector, and 6% in other areas. Overall, 68% of the graduates are working as biomedical informaticians. The results of the survey indicate a good job situation for the graduates. The job opportunities for biomedical informaticians who graduated with a bachelor or master degree from UMIT seem to be quite good. The majority of graduates are working as biomedical informaticians. A larger number of comparable surveys of graduates from other biomedical informatics programs would help to enhance our knowledge about careers in biomedical informatics.

Informatics in radiology: An open-source and open-access cancer biomedical informatics grid annotation and image markup template builder.

PubMed

Mongkolwat, Pattanasak; Channin, David S; Kleper, Vladimir; Rubin, Daniel L

2012-01-01

In a routine clinical environment or clinical trial, a case report form or structured reporting template can be used to quickly generate uniform and consistent reports. Annotation and image markup (AIM), a project supported by the National Cancer Institute's cancer biomedical informatics grid, can be used to collect information for a case report form or structured reporting template. AIM is designed to store, in a single information source, (a) the description of pixel data with use of markups or graphical drawings placed on the image, (b) calculation results (which may or may not be directly related to the markups), and (c) supplemental information. To facilitate the creation of AIM annotations with data entry templates, an AIM template schema and an open-source template creation application were developed to assist clinicians, image researchers, and designers of clinical trials to quickly create a set of data collection items, thereby ultimately making image information more readily accessible.

Informatics in Radiology: An Open-Source and Open-Access Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid Annotation and Image Markup Template Builder

PubMed Central

Channin, David S.; Rubin, Vladimir Kleper Daniel L.

2012-01-01

In a routine clinical environment or clinical trial, a case report form or structured reporting template can be used to quickly generate uniform and consistent reports. Annotation and Image Markup (AIM), a project supported by the National Cancer Institute’s cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid, can be used to collect information for a case report form or structured reporting template. AIM is designed to store, in a single information source, (a) the description of pixel data with use of markups or graphical drawings placed on the image, (b) calculation results (which may or may not be directly related to the markups), and (c) supplemental information. To facilitate the creation of AIM annotations with data entry templates, an AIM template schema and an open-source template creation application were developed to assist clinicians, image researchers, and designers of clinical trials to quickly create a set of data collection items, thereby ultimately making image information more readily accessible. © RSNA, 2012 PMID:22556315

The imaging 3.0 informatics scorecard.

PubMed

Kohli, Marc; Dreyer, Keith J; Geis, J Raymond

2015-04-01

Imaging 3.0 is a radiology community initiative to empower radiologists to create and demonstrate value for their patients, referring physicians, and health systems. In image-guided health care, radiologists contribute to the entire health care process, well before and after the actual examination, and out to the point at which they guide clinical decisions and affect patient outcome. Because imaging is so pervasive, radiologists who adopt Imaging 3.0 concepts in their practice can help their health care systems provide consistently high-quality care at reduced cost. By doing this, radiologists become more valuable in the new health care setting. The authors describe how informatics is critical to embracing Imaging 3.0 and present a scorecard that can be used to gauge a radiology group's informatics resources and capabilities. Copyright © 2015 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The state of medical informatics in India: a roadmap for optimal organization.

PubMed

Sarbadhikari, Suptendra Nath

2005-04-01

In India, the healthcare delivery systems are based on manual record keeping despite a good telecommunication infrastructure. Unfortunately, Indian policy makers are yet to realize the importance of medical informatics (including tele-health, which comprises e-Health and Telemedicine) in delivering healthcare. In the medical curriculum also, nowhere is this treated as a subject or even as a tool for learning. The final aim of most of the medical and paramedical students should be to become good users, and if possible, also experts for advancing medical knowledge base through medical informatics. In view of the fast changing world of medical informatics, it is essential to formulate a flexible syllabus rather than a rigid one for incorporating into the regular curriculum of medical and paramedical education. Only after that one may expect all members of the healthcare delivery systems to adopt and apply medical informatics optimally as a routine tool for their services.

An analysis of application of health informatics in Traditional Medicine: A review of four Traditional Medicine Systems.

PubMed

Raja Ikram, Raja Rina; Abd Ghani, Mohd Khanapi; Abdullah, Noraswaliza

2015-11-01

This paper shall first investigate the informatics areas and applications of the four Traditional Medicine systems - Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Ayurveda, Traditional Arabic and Islamic Medicine and Traditional Malay Medicine. Then, this paper shall examine the national informatics infrastructure initiatives in the four respective countries that support the Traditional Medicine systems. Challenges of implementing informatics in Traditional Medicine Systems shall also be discussed. The literature was sourced from four databases: Ebsco Host, IEEE Explore, Proquest and Google scholar. The search term used was "Traditional Medicine", "informatics", "informatics infrastructure", "traditional Chinese medicine", "Ayurveda", "traditional Arabic and Islamic medicine", and "traditional malay medicine". A combination of the search terms above was also executed to enhance the searching process. A search was also conducted in Google to identify miscellaneous books, publications, and organization websites using the same terms. Amongst major advancements in TCM and Ayurveda are bioinformatics, development of Traditional Medicine databases for decision system support, data mining and image processing. Traditional Chinese Medicine differentiates itself from other Traditional Medicine systems with documented ISO Standards to support the standardization of TCM. Informatics applications in Traditional Arabic and Islamic Medicine are mostly ehealth applications that focus more on spiritual healing, Islamic obligations and prophetic traditions. Literature regarding development of health informatics to support Traditional Malay Medicine is still insufficient. Major informatics infrastructure that is common in China and India are automated insurance payment systems for Traditional Medicine treatment. National informatics infrastructure in Middle East and Malaysia mainly cater for modern medicine. Other infrastructure such as telemedicine and hospital information systems focus its

Evaluating the Prognostic Value of microRNA-203 in Solid Tumors Based on a Meta-Analysis and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Datasets.

PubMed

Shao, Yingjie; Gu, Wendong; Ning, Zhonghua; Song, Xing; Pei, Honglei; Jiang, Jingting

2017-01-01

It has been reported that miR-203 expression was aberrant in various types of cancers, and it could be used as a prognostic biomarker. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of miR-203 expression in solid tumors by using meta-analysis and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets. By doing a literature research in PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library (last update by December 2016), we were able to identify the studies assessing the prognostic role of miR-203 in various tumors. We then used TCGA datasets to validate the results of meta-analysis. 33 studies from 26 articles were qualified and enrolled in this meta-analysis. Pooled analyses showed that higher expression of miR-203 in tissues couldn't predict poor overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in solid tumors. However, the results of subgroup analyses revealed that the upregulation of tissue miR-203 expression was associated with poor OS in colorectal cancer (hazard ratio (HR)=1.81, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.31-2.49; P<0.001), pancreatic cancer (HR=1.19, 95% CI 1.09-1.31; P<0.001) and ovarian cancer (HR=1.85, 95% CI 1.45-2.37; P<0.001); but it had opposite association in liver cancer (HR=0.52, 95% CI 0.28-0.97; P=0.040) and esophageal cancer (HR=0.41, 95% CI 0.25-0.66; P<0.001). Based on TCGA datasets, we found the same results for pancreatic cancer and esophageal cancer, but not for colorectal cancer and liver cancer. Moreover, patients with high circulating miR-203 in blood had significantly poor OS and PFS in colorectal cancer and breast cancer. Our study showed that the prognostic values of tissue miR-203 varied in different tumor types. In addition, the upregulation of circulating miR-203 in blood was associated with poor prognosis in colorectal cancer and breast cancer. © 2017 The Author(s)Published by S. Karger AG, Basel.

The Western New York regional electronic health record initiative: Healthcare informatics use from the registered nurse perspective.

PubMed

Sackett, Kay M; Erdley, W Scott; Jones, Janice

2006-01-01

This paper describes a select population of Western New York (WNY) Registered Nurses' (RN) perspectives on the use of healthcare informatics and the adoption of a regional electronic health record (EHR). A three part class assignment on healthcare informatics used a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Analysis, and a Healthcare Informatics Schemata: A paradigm shift over time(c) timeline to determine RN perspectives about healthcare informatics use at their place of employment. Qualitative analysis of 41 RNs who completed the SWOT analysis provided positive and negative themes related to perceptions about healthcare informatics and EHR use at their place of employment. 29 healthcare organizations were aggregated by year on the timeline from 1950 through 2000. Information suggests that, RNs have the capacity to positively drive the adoption of EHRs and healthcare informatics in WNY.

An informatics research agenda to support precision medicine: seven key areas

PubMed Central

Avillach, Paul; Benham-Hutchins, Marge; Breitenstein, Matthew K; Crowgey, Erin L; Hoffman, Mark A; Jiang, Xia; Madhavan, Subha; Mattison, John E; Nagarajan, Radhakrishnan; Ray, Bisakha; Shin, Dmitriy; Visweswaran, Shyam; Zhao, Zhongming; Freimuth, Robert R

2016-01-01

The recent announcement of the Precision Medicine Initiative by President Obama has brought precision medicine (PM) to the forefront for healthcare providers, researchers, regulators, innovators, and funders alike. As technologies continue to evolve and datasets grow in magnitude, a strong computational infrastructure will be essential to realize PM’s vision of improved healthcare derived from personal data. In addition, informatics research and innovation affords a tremendous opportunity to drive the science underlying PM. The informatics community must lead the development of technologies and methodologies that will increase the discovery and application of biomedical knowledge through close collaboration between researchers, clinicians, and patients. This perspective highlights seven key areas that are in need of further informatics research and innovation to support the realization of PM. PMID:27107452

Building the foundations of an informatics agenda for global health - 2011 workshop report.

PubMed

Mirza, Muzna; Kratz, Mary; Medeiros, Donna; Pina, Jamie; Richards, Janise; Zhang, Xiaohui; Fraser, Hamish; Bailey, Christopher; Krishnamurthy, Ramesh

2012-01-01

Strengthening the capacity of public health systems to protect and promote the health of the global population continues to be essential in an increasingly connected world. Informatics practices and principles can play an important role for improving global health response capacity. A critical step is to develop an informatics agenda for global health so that efforts can be prioritized and important global health issues addressed. With the aim of building a foundation for this agenda, the authors developed a workshop to examine the evidence in this domain, recognize the gaps, and document evidence-based recommendations. On 21 August 2011, at the 2011 Public Health Informatics Conference in Atlanta, GA, USA, a four-hour interactive workshop was conducted with 85 participants from 15 countries representing governmental organizations, private sector companies, academia, and non-governmental organizations. The workshop discussion followed an agenda of a plenary session - planning and agenda setting - and four tracks: Policy and governance; knowledge management, collaborative networks and global partnerships; capacity building; and globally reusable resources: metrics, tools, processes, templates, and digital assets. Track discussions examined the evidence base and the participants' experience to gather information about the current status, compelling and potential benefits, challenges, barriers, and gaps for global health informatics as well as document opportunities and recommendations. This report provides a summary of the discussions and key recommendations as a first step towards building an informatics agenda for global health. Attention to the identified topics and issues is expected to lead to measurable improvements in health equity, health outcomes, and impacts on population health. We propose the workshop report be used as a foundation for the development of the full agenda and a detailed roadmap for global health informatics activities based on further

From bed to bench: bridging from informatics practice to theory: an exploratory analysis.

PubMed

Haux, R; Lehmann, C U

2014-01-01

In 2009, Applied Clinical Informatics (ACI)--focused on applications in clinical informatics--was launched as a companion journal to Methods of Information in Medicine (MIM). Both journals are official journals of the International Medical Informatics Association. To explore which congruencies and interdependencies exist in publications from theory to practice and from practice to theory and to determine existing gaps. Major topics discussed in ACI and MIM were analyzed. We explored if the intention of publishing companion journals to provide an information bridge from informatics theory to informatics practice and vice versa could be supported by this model. In this manuscript we will report on congruencies and interdependences from practice to theory and on major topics in MIM. Retrospective, prolective observational study on recent publications of ACI and MIM. All publications of the years 2012 and 2013 were indexed and analyzed. Hundred and ninety-six publications were analyzed (ACI 87, MIM 109). In MIM publications, modelling aspects as well as methodological and evaluation approaches for the analysis of data, information, and knowledge in biomedicine and health care were frequently raised - and often discussed from an interdisciplinary point of view. Important themes were ambient-assisted living, anatomic spatial relations, biomedical informatics as scientific discipline, boosting, coding, computerized physician order entry, data analysis, grid and cloud computing, health care systems and services, health-enabling technologies, health information search, health information systems, imaging, knowledge-based decision support, patient records, signal analysis, and web science. Congruencies between journals could be found in themes, but with a different focus on content. Interdependencies from practice to theory, found in these publications, were only limited. Bridging from informatics theory to practice and vice versa remains a major component of successful

The Informatics Challenges Facing Biobanks: A Perspective from a United Kingdom Biobanking Network

PubMed Central

Groves, Martin; Jordan, Lee B.; Stobart, Hilary; Purdie, Colin A.; Thompson, Alastair M

2015-01-01

The challenges facing biobanks are changing from simple collections of materials to quality-assured fit-for-purpose clinically annotated samples. As a result, informatics awareness and capabilities of a biobank are now intrinsically related to quality. A biobank may be considered a data repository, in the form of raw data (the unprocessed samples), data surrounding the samples (processing and storage conditions), supplementary data (such as clinical annotations), and an increasing ethical requirement for biobanks to have a mechanism for researchers to return their data. The informatics capabilities of a biobank are no longer simply knowing sample locations; instead the capabilities will become a distinguishing factor in the ability of a biobank to provide appropriate samples. There is an increasing requirement for biobanking systems (whether in-house or commercially sourced) to ensure the informatics systems stay apace with the changes being experienced by the biobanking community. In turn, there is a requirement for the biobanks to have a clear informatics policy and directive that is embedded into the wider decision making process. As an example, the Breast Cancer Campaign Tissue Bank in the UK was a collaboration between four individual and diverse biobanks in the UK, and an informatics platform has been developed to address the challenges of running a distributed network. From developing such a system there are key observations about what can or cannot be achieved by informatics in isolation. This article will highlight some of the lessons learned during this development process. PMID:26418270

Biomedical informatics: development of a comprehensive data warehouse for clinical and genomic breast cancer research.

PubMed

Hu, Hai; Brzeski, Henry; Hutchins, Joe; Ramaraj, Mohan; Qu, Long; Xiong, Richard; Kalathil, Surendran; Kato, Rand; Tenkillaya, Santhosh; Carney, Jerry; Redd, Rosann; Arkalgudvenkata, Sheshkumar; Shahzad, Kashif; Scott, Richard; Cheng, Hui; Meadow, Stephen; McMichael, John; Sheu, Shwu-Lin; Rosendale, David; Kvecher, Leonid; Ahern, Stephen; Yang, Song; Zhang, Yonghong; Jordan, Rick; Somiari, Stella B; Hooke, Jeffrey; Shriver, Craig D; Somiari, Richard I; Liebman, Michael N

2004-10-01

The Windber Research Institute is an integrated high-throughput research center employing clinical, genomic and proteomic platforms to produce terabyte levels of data. We use biomedical informatics technologies to integrate all of these operations. This report includes information on a multi-year, multi-phase hybrid data warehouse project currently under development in the Institute. The purpose of the warehouse is to host the terabyte-level of internal experimentally generated data as well as data from public sources. We have previously reported on the phase I development, which integrated limited internal data sources and selected public databases. Currently, we are completing phase II development, which integrates our internal automated data sources and develops visualization tools to query across these data types. This paper summarizes our clinical and experimental operations, the data warehouse development, and the challenges we have faced. In phase III we plan to federate additional manual internal and public data sources and then to develop and adapt more data analysis and mining tools. We expect that the final implementation of the data warehouse will greatly facilitate biomedical informatics research.

Examining the Relationship Between Nursing Informatics Competency and the Quality of Information Processing.

PubMed

Al-Hawamdih, Sajidah; Ahmad, Muayyad M

2018-03-01

The purpose of this study was to examine nursing informatics competency and the quality of information processing among nurses in Jordan. The study was conducted in a large hospital with 380 registered nurses. The hospital introduced the electronic health record in 2010. The measures used in this study were personal and job characteristics, self-efficacy, Self-Assessment Nursing Informatics Competencies, and Health Information System Monitoring Questionnaire. The convenience sample consisted of 99 nurses who used the electronic health record for at least 3 months. The analysis showed that nine predictors explained 22% of the variance in the quality of information processing, whereas the statistically significant predictors were nursing informatics competency, clinical specialty, and years of nursing experience. There is a need for policies that advocate for every nurse to be educated in nursing informatics and the quality of information processing.

Evidence-based Patient Choice and Consumer health informatics in the Internet age

PubMed Central

2001-01-01

In this paper we explore current access to and barriers to health information for consumers. We discuss how computers and other developments in information technology are ushering in the era of consumer health informatics , and the potential that lies ahead. It is clear that we witness a period in which the public will have unprecedented ability to access information and to participate actively in evidence-based health care. We propose that consumer health informatics be regarded as a whole new academic discipline, one that should be devoted to the exploration of the new possibilities that informatics is creating for consumers in relation to health and health care issues. PMID:11720961

Medical image informatics infrastructure design and applications.

PubMed

Huang, H K; Wong, S T; Pietka, E

1997-01-01

Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) is a system integration of multimodality images and health information systems designed for improving the operation of a radiology department. As it evolves, PACS becomes a hospital image document management system with a voluminous image and related data file repository. A medical image informatics infrastructure can be designed to take advantage of existing data, providing PACS with add-on value for health care service, research, and education. A medical image informatics infrastructure (MIII) consists of the following components: medical images and associated data (including PACS database), image processing, data/knowledge base management, visualization, graphic user interface, communication networking, and application oriented software. This paper describes these components and their logical connection, and illustrates some applications based on the concept of the MIII.

Building an educated health informatics workforce--the New Zealand experience.

PubMed

Parry, David; Hunter, Inga; Honey, Michelle; Holt, Alec; Day, Karen; Kirk, Ray; Cullen, Rowena

2013-01-01

New Zealand has a rapidly expanding health information technology (IT) development industry and wide-ranging use of informatics, especially in the primary health sector. The New Zealand government through the National Health IT Board (NHITB) has promised to provide shared care health records of core information for all New Zealanders by 2014. One of the major barriers to improvement in IT use in healthcare is the dearth of trained and interested clinicians, management and technical workforce. Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ) and the academic community in New Zealand are attempting to remedy this by raising awareness of health informatics at the "grass roots" level of the existing workforce via free "primer" workshops and by developing a sustainable cross-institutional model of educational opportunities. Support from the NHITB has been forthcoming, and the workshops started in early 2013, reaching out to clinical and other staff in post around New Zealand.

Information and informatics literacy: skills, timing, and estimates of competence.

PubMed

Scott, C S; Schaad, D C; Mandel, L S; Brock, D M; Kim, S

2000-01-01

Computing and biomedical informatics technologies are providing almost instantaneous access to vast amounts of possibly relevant information. Although students are entering medical school with increasingly sophisticated basic technological skills, medical educators must determine what curricular enhancements are needed to prepare learners for the world of electronic information. The purpose was to examine opinions of academic affairs and informatics administrators, curriculum deans and recently matriculated medical students about prematriculation competence and medical education learning expectations. Two surveys were administered: an Information Literacy Survey for curriculum/informatics deans and a Computing Skills Survey for entering medical students. Results highlight differences of opinion about entering competencies. They also indicate that medical school administrators believe that most basic information skills fall within the domain of undergraduate medical education. Further investigations are needed to determine precise entry-level skills and whether information literacy will increase as a result of rising levels of technical competence.

Geo-Engineering through Internet Informatics (GEMINI)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Doveton, John H.; Watney, W. Lynn

The program, for development and methodologies, was a 3-year interdisciplinary effort to develop an interactive, integrated Internet Website named GEMINI (Geo-Engineering Modeling through Internet Informatics) that would build real-time geo-engineering reservoir models for the Internet using the latest technology in Web applications.

Medical informatics and telemedicine: A vision

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clemmer, Terry P.

1991-01-01

The goal of medical informatics is to improve care. This requires the commitment and harmonious collaboration between the computer scientists and clinicians and an integrated database. The vision described is how medical information systems are going to impact the way medical care is delivered in the future.

Using the Internet to Teach Health Informatics: A Case Study

PubMed Central

Holt, Alec; Gillies, John

2001-01-01

Background It is becoming increasingly important for health professionals to have an understanding of health informatics. Education in this area must support not only undergraduate students but also the many workers who graduated before informatics education was available in the undergraduate program. To be successful, such a program must allow currently-employed students with significant work and family commitments to enroll. Objectives The aim was to successfully create and teach a distance program in health informatics for the New Zealand environment. Methods Our students are primarily health professionals in full time employment. About 50% are doctors, about 25% nurses, and the rest include dentists, physiotherapists, and medical managers. Course material was delivered via the World Wide Web and CD-ROM. Communication between students and faculty, both synchronous and asynchronous, was carried out via the Internet. Results We have designed and taught a postgraduate Diploma of Health Informatics program using the Internet as a major communication medium. The course has been running since July 1998 and the first 10 students graduated in July 2000. About 45 students are currently enrolled in the course; we have had a dropout rate of 15% and a failure rate of 5%. Comparable dropout figures are hard to obtain, but a recent review has suggested that failure-to-complete rates of 30% to 33% may be expected. Conclusions Internet technology has provided an exciting educational challenge and opportunity. Providing a web-based health informatics course has not been without its frustrations and problems, including software compatibility issues, bandwidth limitations, and the rapid change in software and hardware. Despite these challenges, the use of Internet technology has been interesting for both staff and students, and a worthwhile alternative for delivering educational material and advice to students working from their own homes. PMID:11720968

Case-based medical informatics

PubMed Central

Pantazi, Stefan V; Arocha, José F; Moehr, Jochen R

2004-01-01

Background The "applied" nature distinguishes applied sciences from theoretical sciences. To emphasize this distinction, we begin with a general, meta-level overview of the scientific endeavor. We introduce the knowledge spectrum and four interconnected modalities of knowledge. In addition to the traditional differentiation between implicit and explicit knowledge we outline the concepts of general and individual knowledge. We connect general knowledge with the "frame problem," a fundamental issue of artificial intelligence, and individual knowledge with another important paradigm of artificial intelligence, case-based reasoning, a method of individual knowledge processing that aims at solving new problems based on the solutions to similar past problems. We outline the fundamental differences between Medical Informatics and theoretical sciences and propose that Medical Informatics research should advance individual knowledge processing (case-based reasoning) and that natural language processing research is an important step towards this goal that may have ethical implications for patient-centered health medicine. Discussion We focus on fundamental aspects of decision-making, which connect human expertise with individual knowledge processing. We continue with a knowledge spectrum perspective on biomedical knowledge and conclude that case-based reasoning is the paradigm that can advance towards personalized healthcare and that can enable the education of patients and providers. We center the discussion on formal methods of knowledge representation around the frame problem. We propose a context-dependent view on the notion of "meaning" and advocate the need for case-based reasoning research and natural language processing. In the context of memory based knowledge processing, pattern recognition, comparison and analogy-making, we conclude that while humans seem to naturally support the case-based reasoning paradigm (memory of past experiences of problem-solving and

An informatics agenda for public health: summarized recommendations from the 2011 AMIA PHI Conference

PubMed Central

Goodman, Kenneth W; Gotham, Ivan J; Holmes, John H; Lang, Lisa; Miner, Kathleen; Potenziani, David D; Richards, Janise; Turner, Anne M; Fu, Paul C

2012-01-01

The AMIA Public Health Informatics 2011 Conference brought together members of the public health and health informatics communities to revisit the national agenda developed at the AMIA Spring Congress in 2001, assess the progress that has been made in the past decade, and develop recommendations to further guide the field. Participants met in five discussion tracks: technical framework; research and evaluation; ethics; education, professional training, and workforce development; and sustainability. Participants identified 62 recommendations, which clustered into three key themes related to the need to (1) enhance communication and information sharing within the public health informatics community, (2) improve the consistency of public health informatics through common public health terminologies, rigorous evaluation methodologies, and competency-based training, and (3) promote effective coordination and leadership that will champion and drive the field forward. The agenda and recommendations from the meeting will be disseminated and discussed throughout the public health and informatics communities. Both communities stand to gain much by working together to use these recommendations to further advance the application of information technology to improve health. PMID:22395299

Information and informatics in a geological survey - the good, the bad and the ugly

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jackson, I.

2008-12-01

It is apparent that the most successful geological surveys (as measured by the only true Key Performance Indicator - their effectiveness in serving their societies) have recognised that, while their core business is making maps and models and doing scientific research to underpin that, the commodity they actually deal in is data and information and knowledge. They know that in a digital world the better they organise the data and information and knowledge, the more successful they will be. In our future world, where e-science will surely dominate, some are already sub-titling themselves as information or knowledge exchange organisations. There seems an unarguable correlation between surveys which organise their information well and those that run their projects well, their agility in responding to government agendas or national emergencies, and flexibility in delivering products their diverse users want. Look deeper and you can see the pivotal role of best practice information management and the tangible benefits a responsible approach to acquiring, storing and delivering information brings. But even in these (most successful) surveys the people leading information management will tell you that it was a gargantuan battle to get the resources to achieve this success and that, even with the downstream fruits of the investment in professional information management and informatics now obvious, it is a continuing struggle to maintain a decent level of funding for these tasks. It is not hard to see why; the struggle is innately one-sided; geoscientists are born and/or trained to be curious, to be independent and to innovate. If the choice is between more research and survey, or a professional approach to information/informatics and the adjudicators are geoscientists, it is not difficult to pick the winner. So what does lie behind a successful approach to information in a geological survey organisation? First, recognise that poor information management cannot just be

Understanding the use of geographical information systems (GIS) in health informatics research: A review.

PubMed

Shaw, Nicola; McGuire, Suzanne

2017-06-23

The purpose of this literature review is to understand geographical information systems (GIS) and how they can be applied to public health informatics, medical informatics, and epidemiology. Relevant papers that reflected the use of geographical information systems (GIS) in health research were identified from four academic databases: Academic Search Complete, BioMed Central, PubMed Central, and Scholars Portal, as well as Google Scholar. The search strategy used was to identify articles with "geographic information systems", "GIS", "public health", "medical informatics", "epidemiology", and "health geography" as main subject headings or text words in titles and abstracts. Papers published between 1997 and 2014 were considered and a total of 39 articles were included to inform the authors on the use of GIS technologies in health informatics research. The main applications of GIS in health informatics and epidemiology include disease surveillance, health risk analysis, health access and planning, and community health profiling. GIS technologies can significantly improve quality and efficiency in health research as substantial connections can be made between a population's health and their geographical location. Gains in health informatics can be made when GIS are applied through research, however, improvements need to occur in the quantity and quality of data input for these systems to ensure better geographical health maps are used so that proper conclusions between public health and environmental factors may be made.

Incorporating healthcare informatics into the strategic planning process in nursing education.

PubMed

Sackett, Kay; Jones, Janice; Erdley, W Scott

2005-01-01

The purpose of this article is to describe the incorporation of healthcare informatics into the strategic planning process in nursing education. An exemplar from the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York School of Nursing, is interwoven throughout the article. The challenges and successes inherent in a paradigm shift embracing the multifaceted adoption of technology in higher education are illustrated. The paradigm shift that necessitated this change, the need for informatics standards and competencies identified by regulatory agencies and the relationship of the triad mission of the Academy which includes research, teaching and service are then elucidated. Information pertinent to the strategic planning process is described including the use of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis to facilitate the integration of a healthcare informatics model into a nursing curriculum.

Cheminformatics Research at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics Cambridge.

PubMed

Fuchs, Julian E; Bender, Andreas; Glen, Robert C

2015-09-01

The Centre for Molecular Informatics, formerly Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics (UCMSI), at the University of Cambridge is a world-leading driving force in the field of cheminformatics. Since its opening in 2000 more than 300 scientific articles have fundamentally changed the field of molecular informatics. The Centre has been a key player in promoting open chemical data and semantic access. Though mainly focussing on basic research, close collaborations with industrial partners ensured real world feedback and access to high quality molecular data. A variety of tools and standard protocols have been developed and are ubiquitous in the daily practice of cheminformatics. Here, we present a retrospective of cheminformatics research performed at the UCMSI, thereby highlighting historical and recent trends in the field as well as indicating future directions.

Cheminformatics Research at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics Cambridge

PubMed Central

Fuchs, Julian E; Bender, Andreas; Glen, Robert C

2015-01-01

The Centre for Molecular Informatics, formerly Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics (UCMSI), at the University of Cambridge is a world-leading driving force in the field of cheminformatics. Since its opening in 2000 more than 300 scientific articles have fundamentally changed the field of molecular informatics. The Centre has been a key player in promoting open chemical data and semantic access. Though mainly focussing on basic research, close collaborations with industrial partners ensured real world feedback and access to high quality molecular data. A variety of tools and standard protocols have been developed and are ubiquitous in the daily practice of cheminformatics. Here, we present a retrospective of cheminformatics research performed at the UCMSI, thereby highlighting historical and recent trends in the field as well as indicating future directions. PMID:26435758

Electronic Personal Health Record Use Among Nurses in the Nursing Informatics Community.

PubMed

Gartrell, Kyungsook; Trinkoff, Alison M; Storr, Carla L; Wilson, Marisa L

2015-07-01

An electronic personal health record is a patient-centric tool that enables patients to securely access, manage, and share their health information with healthcare providers. It is presumed the nursing informatics community would be early adopters of electronic personal health record, yet no studies have been identified that examine the personal adoption of electronic personal health record's for their own healthcare. For this study, we sampled nurse members of the American Medical Informatics Association and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society with 183 responding. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify those factors associated with electronic personal health record use. Overall, 72% were electronic personal health record users. Users tended to be older (aged >50 years), be more highly educated (72% master's or doctoral degrees), and hold positions as clinical informatics specialists or chief nursing informatics officers. Those whose healthcare providers used electronic health records were significantly more likely to use electronic personal health records (odds ratio, 5.99; 95% confidence interval, 1.40-25.61). Electronic personal health record users were significantly less concerned about privacy of health information online than nonusers (odds ratio, 0.32; 95% confidence interval, 0.14-0.70) adjusted for ethnicity, race, and practice region. Informatics nurses, with their patient-centered view of technology, are in prime position to influence development of electronic personal health records. Our findings can inform policy efforts to encourage informatics and other professional nursing groups to become leaders and users of electronic personal health record; such use could help them endorse and engage patients to use electronic personal health records. Having champions with expertise in and enthusiasm for the new technology can promote the adoptionof electronic personal health records among healthcare providers as well as

Consumer Health Informatics--integrating patients, providers, and professionals online.

PubMed

Klein-Fedyshin, Michele S

2002-01-01

Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) means different things to patients, health professionals, and health care systems. A broader perspective on this new and rapidly developing field will enable us to understand and better apply its advances. This article provides an overview of CHI discussing its evolution and driving forces, along with advanced applications such as Personal Health Records, Internet transmission of personal health data, clinical e-mail, online pharmacies, and shared decision-making tools. Consumer Health Informatics will become integrated with medical care, electronic medical records, and patient education to impact the whole process and business of health care.

Geo-spatial Informatics in International Public Health Nursing Education.

PubMed

Kerr, Madeleine J; Honey, Michelle L L; Krzyzanowski, Brittany

2016-01-01

This poster describes results of an undergraduate nursing informatics experience. Students applied geo-spatial methods to community assessments in two urban regions of New Zealand and the United States. Students used the Omaha System standardized language to code their observations during a brief community assessment activity and entered their data into a mapping program developed in Esri ArcGIS Online, a geographic information system. Results will be displayed in tables and maps to allow comparison among the communities. The next generation of nurses can employ geo-spatial informatics methods to contribute to innovative community assessment, planning and policy development.

Health informatics 3.0.

PubMed

Kalra, Dipak

2011-01-01

Web 3.0 promises us smart computer services that will interact with each other and leverage knowledge about us and our immediate context to deliver prioritised and relevant information to support decisions and actions. Healthcare must take advantage of such new knowledge-integrating services, in particular to support better co-operation between professionals of different disciplines working in different locations, and to enable well-informed co-operation between clinicians and patients. To grasp the potential of Web 3.0 we will need well-harmonised semantic resources that can richly connect virtual teams and link their strategies to real-time and tailored evidence. Facts, decision logic, care pathway steps, alerts, education need to be embedded within components that can interact with multiple EHR systems and services consistently. Using Health Informatics 3.0 a patient's current situation could be compared with the outcomes of very similar patients (from across millions) to deliver personalised care recommendations. The integration of EHRs with biomedical sciences ('omics) research results and predictive models such as the Virtual Physiological Human could help speed up the translation of new knowledge into clinical practice. The mission, and challenge, for Health Informatics 3.0 is to enable healthy citizens, patients and professionals to collaborate within a knowledge-empowered social network in which patient specific information and personalised real-time evidence are seamlessly interwoven.

Cognitive engineering and health informatics: Applications and intersections.

PubMed

Hettinger, A Zachary; Roth, Emilie M; Bisantz, Ann M

2017-03-01

Cognitive engineering is an applied field with roots in both cognitive science and engineering that has been used to support design of information displays, decision support, human-automation interaction, and training in numerous high risk domains ranging from nuclear power plant control to transportation and defense systems. Cognitive engineering provides a set of structured, analytic methods for data collection and analysis that intersect with and complement methods of Cognitive Informatics. These methods support discovery of aspects of the work that make performance challenging, as well as the knowledge, skills, and strategies that experts use to meet those challenges. Importantly, cognitive engineering methods provide novel representations that highlight the inherent complexities of the work domain and traceable links between the results of cognitive analyses and actionable design requirements. This article provides an overview of relevant cognitive engineering methods, and illustrates how they have been applied to the design of health information technology (HIT) systems. Additionally, although cognitive engineering methods have been applied in the design of user-centered informatics systems, methods drawn from informatics are not typically incorporated into a cognitive engineering analysis. This article presents a discussion regarding ways in which data-rich methods can inform cognitive engineering. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Clinical Research Informatics and Electronic Health Record Data

PubMed Central

Horvath, M. M.; Rusincovitch, S. A.

2014-01-01

Summary Objectives The goal of this survey is to discuss the impact of the growing availability of electronic health record (EHR) data on the evolving field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI), which is the union of biomedical research and informatics. Results Major challenges for the use of EHR-derived data for research include the lack of standard methods for ensuring that data quality, completeness, and provenance are sufficient to assess the appropriateness of its use for research. Areas that need continued emphasis include methods for integrating data from heterogeneous sources, guidelines (including explicit phenotype definitions) for using these data in both pragmatic clinical trials and observational investigations, strong data governance to better understand and control quality of enterprise data, and promotion of national standards for representing and using clinical data. Conclusions The use of EHR data has become a priority in CRI. Awareness of underlying clinical data collection processes will be essential in order to leverage these data for clinical research and patient care, and will require multi-disciplinary teams representing clinical research, informatics, and healthcare operations. Considerations for the use of EHR data provide a starting point for practical applications and a CRI research agenda, which will be facilitated by CRI’s key role in the infrastructure of a learning healthcare system. PMID:25123746

Clinical research informatics and electronic health record data.

PubMed

Richesson, R L; Horvath, M M; Rusincovitch, S A

2014-08-15

The goal of this survey is to discuss the impact of the growing availability of electronic health record (EHR) data on the evolving field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI), which is the union of biomedical research and informatics. Major challenges for the use of EHR-derived data for research include the lack of standard methods for ensuring that data quality, completeness, and provenance are sufficient to assess the appropriateness of its use for research. Areas that need continued emphasis include methods for integrating data from heterogeneous sources, guidelines (including explicit phenotype definitions) for using these data in both pragmatic clinical trials and observational investigations, strong data governance to better understand and control quality of enterprise data, and promotion of national standards for representing and using clinical data. The use of EHR data has become a priority in CRI. Awareness of underlying clinical data collection processes will be essential in order to leverage these data for clinical research and patient care, and will require multi-disciplinary teams representing clinical research, informatics, and healthcare operations. Considerations for the use of EHR data provide a starting point for practical applications and a CRI research agenda, which will be facilitated by CRI's key role in the infrastructure of a learning healthcare system.

Quantum informatics paradigms and tools for QIPC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gruska, Jozef

2006-11-01

Quantum information processing and communication (QIPC) theory has developed recently very fast and brought a variety of interesting and important results of the great value also for the whole area of quantum physics. One can also say that the field of QIPC has been so far mainly theory driven and the experiments have been mostly done to show that it is indeed possible, and how difficult is to make it, what theory shows as possible. One of the main reasons for such a fast and successful development of the QIPC science is the fact that paradigms, models, concepts, value system, as well as methods and results of the (theoretical) informatics have been intensively used. The goal of this paper is to go behind this successful crusade and applications of the informatics for QIPC and to present, analyse and illustrate the main ideas, concepts, methods and tools that have been involved. All that should help more physics-oriented researchers in QIPC to understand that in order to explore the quantum world, new paradigms, concepts, models and so on are now available, and they could and should be used, due to the progress in (theoretical) informatics. Our concentration will be not only on what has been achieved, but even more on the main new challenges. In doing that we will concentrate more on the backgrounds, motivations, goals and implications than on the very technical results.

The Australian Health Informatics Competencies Framework and Its Role in the Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) Program.

PubMed

Martin-Sanchez, Fernando; Rowlands, David; Schaper, Louise; Hansen, David

2017-01-01

The Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) program consists of an online exam, which aims to test whether a candidate has the knowledge and skills that are identified in the competencies framework to perform as a health informatics professional. The CHIA Health Informatics Competencies Framework provides the context in which the questions for the exam have been developed. The core competencies for health informatics that are tested in the exam have been developed with reference to similar programs by the American Medical Informatics Association, the International Medical Informatics Association and COACH, Canada's Health Informatics Association, and builds on the previous work done by the Australian Health Informatics Education Council. This paper shows how the development of this competency framework is helping to raise the profile of health informaticians in Australasia, contributing to a wider recognition of the profession, and defining more clearly the body of knowledge underpinning this discipline. This framework can also be used as a set of guidelines for recruiting purposes, definitions of career pathways, or the design of educational and training activities. We discuss here the current status of the program, its resultsandprospectsfor the future.

STARE-HI – Statement on Reporting of Evaluation Studies in Health Informatics

PubMed Central

Brender, J.; Talmon, J.; de Keizer, N.; Nykänen, P.; Rigby, M.; Ammenwerth, E.

2013-01-01

Summary Background Improving the quality of reporting of evaluation studies in health informatics is an important requirement towards the vision of evidence-based health informatics. The STARE-HI – Statement on Reporting of Evaluation Studies in health informatics, published in 2009, provides guidelines on the elements to be contained in an evaluation study report. Objectives To elaborate on and provide a rationale for the principles of STARE-HI and to guide authors and readers of evaluation studies in health informatics by providing explanatory examples of reporting. Methods A group of methodologists, researchers and editors prepared the present elaboration of the STARE-HI statement and selected examples from the literature. Results The 35 STARE-HI items to be addressed in evaluation papers describing health informatics interventions are discussed one by one and each is extended with examples and elaborations. Conclusion The STARE-HI statement and this elaboration document should be helpful resources to improve reporting of both quantitative and qualitative evaluation studies. Evaluation manuscripts adhering to the principles will enable readers of such papers to better place the studies in a proper context and judge their validity and generalizability, and thus in turn optimize the exploitation of the evidence contained therein. Limitations This paper is based on experiences of a group of editors, reviewers, authors of systematic reviews and readers of the scientific literature. The applicability of the details of these principles has to evolve as a function of their use in practice. PMID:24155788

Informatics and the Clinical Laboratory

PubMed Central

Jones, Richard G; Johnson, Owen A; Batstone, Gifford

2014-01-01

The nature of pathology services is changing under the combined pressures of increasing workloads, cost constraints and technological advancement. In the face of this, laboratory systems need to meet new demands for data exchange with clinical electronic record systems for test requesting and results reporting. As these needs develop, new challenges are emerging especially with respect to the format and content of the datasets which are being exchanged. If the potential for the inclusion of intelligent systems in both these areas is to be realised, the continued dialogue between clinicians and laboratory information specialists is of paramount importance. Requirements of information technology (IT) in pathology, now extend well beyond the provision of purely analytical data. With the aim of achieving seamless integration of laboratory data into the total clinical pathway, ‘Informatics’ – the art and science of turning data into useful information – is becoming increasingly important in laboratory medicine. Informatics is a powerful tool in pathology – whether in implementing processes for pathology modernisation, introducing new diagnostic modalities (e.g. proteomics, genomics), providing timely and evidence-based disease management, or enabling best use of limited and often costly resources. Providing appropriate information to empowered and interested patients – which requires critical assessment of the ever-increasing volume of information available – can also benefit greatly from appropriate use of informatics in enhancing self-management of long term conditions. The increasing demands placed on pathology information systems in the context of wider developmental change in healthcare delivery are explored in this review. General trends in medical informatics are reflected in current priorities for laboratory medicine, including the need for unified electronic records, computerised order entry, data security and recovery, and audit. We conclude that

Building the Foundations of an Informatics Agenda for Global Health - 2011 Workshop Report

PubMed Central

Mirza, Muzna; Kratz, Mary; Medeiros, Donna; Pina, Jamie; Richards, Janise; Zhang, Xiaohui; Fraser, Hamish; Bailey, Christopher; Krishnamurthy, Ramesh

2012-01-01

Strengthening the capacity of public health systems to protect and promote the health of the global population continues to be essential in an increasingly connected world. Informatics practices and principles can play an important role for improving global health response capacity. A critical step is to develop an informatics agenda for global health so that efforts can be prioritized and important global health issues addressed. With the aim of building a foundation for this agenda, the authors developed a workshop to examine the evidence in this domain, recognize the gaps, and document evidence-based recommendations. On 21 August 2011, at the 2011 Public Health Informatics Conference in Atlanta, GA, USA, a four-hour interactive workshop was conducted with 85 participants from 15 countries representing governmental organizations, private sector companies, academia, and non-governmental organizations. The workshop discussion followed an agenda of a plenary session - planning and agenda setting - and four tracks: Policy and governance; knowledge management, collaborative networks and global partnerships; capacity building; and globally reusable resources: metrics, tools, processes, templates, and digital assets. Track discussions examined the evidence base and the participants’ experience to gather information about the current status, compelling and potential benefits, challenges, barriers, and gaps for global health informatics as well as document opportunities and recommendations. This report provides a summary of the discussions and key recommendations as a first step towards building an informatics agenda for global health. Attention to the identified topics and issues is expected to lead to measurable improvements in health equity, health outcomes, and impacts on population health. We propose the workshop report be used as a foundation for the development of the full agenda and a detailed roadmap for global health informatics activities based on further

Community Based Informatics: Geographical Information Systems, Remote Sensing and Ontology collaboration - A technical hands-on approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Branch, B. D.; Raskin, R. G.; Rock, B.; Gagnon, M.; Lecompte, M. A.; Hayden, L. B.

2009-12-01

With the nation challenged to comply with Executive Order 12906 and its needs to augment the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pipeline, applied focus on geosciences pipelines issue may be at risk. The Geosciences pipeline may require intentional K-12 standard course of study consideration in the form of project based, science based and evidenced based learning. Thus, the K-12 to geosciences to informatics pipeline may benefit from an earth science experience that utilizes a community based “learning by doing” approach. Terms such as Community GIS, Community Remotes Sensing, and Community Based Ontology development are termed Community Informatics. Here, approaches of interdisciplinary work to promote and earth science literacy are affordable, consisting of low cost equipment that renders GIS/remote sensing data processing skills necessary in the workforce. Hence, informal community ontology development may evolve or mature from a local community towards formal scientific community collaboration. Such consideration may become a means to engage educational policy towards earth science paradigms and needs, specifically linking synergy among Math, Computer Science, and Earth Science disciplines.

Information Science Education Between "Documentalization" and "Informatization".

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seeger, Thomas; Wersig, Gernot

1983-01-01

Information work is considered from point of view of knowledge production, knowledge needs, and communication media. Developments in diffusion and transmission of knowledge, transitional stage between "documentalization" and "informatization," changing role of the information professional, new orientations in information field,…

SWOT Analysis on Medical Informatics and Development Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ma, Xiaoyan; Han, Zhongdong; Ma, Hua

2015-01-01

This article aims at clarifying the strategic significance of developing medical informatics, conducting SWOT analysis on this discipline and hence establishing the strategic objectives and focal points for its development.

Trends in biomedical informatics: automated topic analysis of JAMIA articles.

PubMed

Han, Dong; Wang, Shuang; Jiang, Chao; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Kim, Hyeon-Eui; Sun, Jimeng; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

2015-11-01

Biomedical Informatics is a growing interdisciplinary field in which research topics and citation trends have been evolving rapidly in recent years. To analyze these data in a fast, reproducible manner, automation of certain processes is needed. JAMIA is a "generalist" journal for biomedical informatics. Its articles reflect the wide range of topics in informatics. In this study, we retrieved Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms and citations of JAMIA articles published between 2009 and 2014. We use tensors (i.e., multidimensional arrays) to represent the interaction among topics, time and citations, and applied tensor decomposition to automate the analysis. The trends represented by tensors were then carefully interpreted and the results were compared with previous findings based on manual topic analysis. A list of most cited JAMIA articles, their topics, and publication trends over recent years is presented. The analyses confirmed previous studies and showed that, from 2012 to 2014, the number of articles related to MeSH terms Methods, Organization & Administration, and Algorithms increased significantly both in number of publications and citations. Citation trends varied widely by topic, with Natural Language Processing having a large number of citations in particular years, and Medical Record Systems, Computerized remaining a very popular topic in all years. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Why Medical Informatics (still) Needs Cognitive and Social Sciences.

PubMed

Declerck, G; Aimé, X

2013-01-01

To summarize current excellent medical informatics research in the field of human factors and organizational issues. Using PubMed, a total of 3,024 papers were selected from 17 journals. The papers were evaluated on the basis of their title, keywords, and abstract, using several exclusion and inclusion criteria. 15 preselected papers were carefully evaluated by six referees using a standard evaluation grid. Six best papers were selected exemplifying the central role cognitive and social sciences can play in medical informatics research. Among other contributions, those studies: (i) make use of the distributed cognition paradigm to model and understand clinical care situations; (ii) take into account organizational issues to analyse the impact of HIT on information exchange and coordination processes; (iii) illustrate how models and empirical data from cognitive psychology can be used in medical informatics; and (iv) highlight the need of qualitative studies to analyze the unexpected side effects of HIT on cognitive and work processes. The selected papers demonstrate that paradigms, methodologies, models, and results from cognitive and social sciences can help to bridge the gap between HIT and end users, and contribute to limit adoption failures that are reported regularly.

Translational Research from an Informatics Perspective

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bernstam, Elmer; Meric-Bernstam, Funda; Johnson-Throop, Kathy A.; Turley, James P.; Smith, Jack W.

2007-01-01

Clinical and translational research (CTR) is an essential part of a sustainable global health system. Informatics is now recognized as an important en-abler of CTR and informaticians are increasingly called upon to help CTR efforts. The US National Institutes of Health mandated biomedical informatics activity as part of its new national CTR grant initiative, the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA). Traditionally, translational re-search was defined as the translation of laboratory discoveries to patient care (bench to bedside). We argue, however, that there are many other kinds of translational research. Indeed, translational re-search requires the translation of knowledge dis-covered in one domain to another domain and is therefore an information-based activity. In this panel, we will expand upon this view of translational research and present three different examples of translation to illustrate the point: 1) bench to bedside, 2) Earth to space and 3) academia to community. We will conclude with a discussion of our local translational research efforts that draw on each of the three examples.

Long noncoding RNA CYTOR in cancer: A TCGA data review.

PubMed

Liang, Jiayu; Wei, Xin; Liu, Zhihong; Cao, Dehong; Tang, Yongquan; Zou, Zijun; Zhou, Chuan; Lu, Yiping

2018-08-01

Increasing evidence has shown the critical role of long non-coding RNA cytoskeleton regulator (CYTOR) in cancers. The expression of CYTOR is reported to be up-regulated in many kinds of cancers, such as gastric cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, colon cancer, lung adenocarcinoma, oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma and renal cell carcinoma. Here, we summarized related studies and performed a meta-analysis to investigate the prognostic value of CYTOR in multiple cancers. Eligible studies were retrieved from PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases, and the role of CYTOR in cancers was evaluated by pooled odds ratios (ORs) and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The results were further validated using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. Our results showed that elevated CYTOR expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis in cancer patients (overall survival, HR = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.73-2.38, P < 0.00001). In addition, increased CYTOR expression is associated with lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.76, 95% CI = 1.28-5.95, P = 0.01), advanced TNM stage (OR = 2.23, 95% CI = 1.48-3.38, P = 0.001) and higher tumour grade (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.03-2.29, P = 0.04). Overall, this study indicates that CYTOR may serve as a prognostic biomarker for cancer patients during the follow-up. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Big Data: Are Biomedical and Health Informatics Training Programs Ready? Contribution of the IMIA Working Group for Health and Medical Informatics Education.

PubMed

Otero, P; Hersh, W; Jai Ganesh, A U

2014-08-15

The growing volume and diversity of health and biomedical data indicate that the era of Big Data has arrived for healthcare. This has many implications for informatics, not only in terms of implementing and evaluating information systems, but also for the work and training of informatics researchers and professionals. This article addresses the question: What do biomedical and health informaticians working in analytics and Big Data need to know? We hypothesize a set of skills that we hope will be discussed among academic and other informaticians. The set of skills includes: Programming - especially with data-oriented tools, such as SQL and statistical programming languages; Statistics - working knowledge to apply tools and techniques; Domain knowledge - depending on one's area of work, bioscience or health care; and Communication - being able to understand needs of people and organizations, and articulate results back to them. Biomedical and health informatics educational programs must introduce concepts of analytics, Big Data, and the underlying skills to use and apply them into their curricula. The development of new coursework should focus on those who will become experts, with training aiming to provide skills in "deep analytical talent" as well as those who need knowledge to support such individuals.

Trends in biomedical informatics: most cited topics from recent years

PubMed Central

Kim, Hyeon-Eui; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Kim, Jihoon

2011-01-01

Biomedical informatics is a young, highly interdisciplinary field that is evolving quickly. It is important to know which published topics in generalist biomedical informatics journals elicit the most interest from the scientific community, and whether this interest changes over time, so that journals can better serve their readers. It is also important to understand whether free access to biomedical informatics articles impacts their citation rates in a significant way, so authors can make informed decisions about unlock fees, and journal owners and publishers understand the implications of open access. The topics and JAMIA articles from years 2009 and 2010 that have been most cited according to the Web of Science are described. To better understand the effects of free access in article dissemination, the number of citations per month after publication for articles published in 2009 versus 2010 was compared, since there was a significant change in free access to JAMIA articles between those years. Results suggest that there is a positive association between free access and citation rate for JAMIA articles. PMID:22180873

Beyond information access: Support for complex cognitive activities in public health informatics tools.

PubMed

Sedig, Kamran; Parsons, Paul; Dittmer, Mark; Ola, Oluwakemi

2012-01-01

Public health professionals work with a variety of information sources to carry out their everyday activities. In recent years, interactive computational tools have become deeply embedded in such activities. Unlike the early days of computational tool use, the potential of tools nowadays is not limited to simply providing access to information; rather, they can act as powerful mediators of human-information discourse, enabling rich interaction with public health information. If public health informatics tools are designed and used properly, they can facilitate, enhance, and support the performance of complex cognitive activities that are essential to public health informatics, such as problem solving, forecasting, sense-making, and planning. However, the effective design and evaluation of public health informatics tools requires an understanding of the cognitive and perceptual issues pertaining to how humans work and think with information to perform such activities. This paper draws on research that has examined some of the relevant issues, including interaction design, complex cognition, and visual representations, to offer some human-centered design and evaluation considerations for public health informatics tools.

Web impact factor: a bibliometric criterion applied to medical informatics societies' web sites.

PubMed

Soualmia, Lina Fatima; Darmoni, Stéfan Jacques; Le Duff, Franck; Douyere, Magaly; Thelwall, Maurice

2002-01-01

Several methods are available to evaluate and compare medical journals. The most popular is the journal Impact Factor, derived from averaging counts of citations to articles. Ingwersen adapted this method to assess the attractiveness of Web sites, defining the external Web Impact Factor (WIF) to be the number of external pages containing a link to a given Web site. This paper applies the WIF to 43 medical informatics societies' Web sites using advanced search engine queries to obtain the necessary link counts. The WIF was compared to the number of publications available in the Medline bibliographic database in medical informatics in these 43 countries. Between these two metrics, the observed Pearson correlation was 0.952 (p < 0.01) and the Spearman rank correlation was 0.548 (p < 0.01) showing in both cases a positive and strong significant correlation. The WIF of medicalm informatics society's Web site is statistically related to national productivity and discrepancies can be used to indicate countries where there are either weak medical informatics associations, or ones that do not make optimal use of the Web.

Data Analysis and Data Mining: Current Issues in Biomedical Informatics

PubMed Central

Bellazzi, Riccardo; Diomidous, Marianna; Sarkar, Indra Neil; Takabayashi, Katsuhiko; Ziegler, Andreas; McCray, Alexa T.

2011-01-01

Summary Background Medicine and biomedical sciences have become data-intensive fields, which, at the same time, enable the application of data-driven approaches and require sophisticated data analysis and data mining methods. Biomedical informatics provides a proper interdisciplinary context to integrate data and knowledge when processing available information, with the aim of giving effective decision-making support in clinics and translational research. Objectives To reflect on different perspectives related to the role of data analysis and data mining in biomedical informatics. Methods On the occasion of the 50th year of Methods of Information in Medicine a symposium was organized, that reflected on opportunities, challenges and priorities of organizing, representing and analysing data, information and knowledge in biomedicine and health care. The contributions of experts with a variety of backgrounds in the area of biomedical data analysis have been collected as one outcome of this symposium, in order to provide a broad, though coherent, overview of some of the most interesting aspects of the field. Results The paper presents sections on data accumulation and data-driven approaches in medical informatics, data and knowledge integration, statistical issues for the evaluation of data mining models, translational bioinformatics and bioinformatics aspects of genetic epidemiology. Conclusions Biomedical informatics represents a natural framework to properly and effectively apply data analysis and data mining methods in a decision-making context. In the future, it will be necessary to preserve the inclusive nature of the field and to foster an increasing sharing of data and methods between researchers. PMID:22146916

Informatics and computational strategies for the study of lipids.

PubMed

Yetukuri, Laxman; Ekroos, Kim; Vidal-Puig, Antonio; Oresic, Matej

2008-02-01

Recent advances in mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques for lipidomic analysis have empowered us with the tools that afford studies of lipidomes at the systems level. However, these techniques pose a number of challenges for lipidomic raw data processing, lipid informatics, and the interpretation of lipidomic data in the context of lipid function and structure. Integration of lipidomic data with other systemic levels, such as genomic or proteomic, in the context of molecular pathways and biophysical processes provides a basis for the understanding of lipid function at the systems level. The present report, based on the limited literature, is an update on a young but rapidly emerging field of lipid informatics and related pathway reconstruction strategies.

Biomedical Informatics for Computer-Aided Decision Support Systems: A Survey

PubMed Central

Belle, Ashwin; Kon, Mark A.; Najarian, Kayvan

2013-01-01

The volumes of current patient data as well as their complexity make clinical decision making more challenging than ever for physicians and other care givers. This situation calls for the use of biomedical informatics methods to process data and form recommendations and/or predictions to assist such decision makers. The design, implementation, and use of biomedical informatics systems in the form of computer-aided decision support have become essential and widely used over the last two decades. This paper provides a brief review of such systems, their application protocols and methodologies, and the future challenges and directions they suggest. PMID:23431259

Observations on sustainable and ubiquitous healthcare informatics from Florence Nightingale.

PubMed

Betts, Helen J; Wright, Graham

2009-01-01

As nurses around the world prepare to celebrate the centenary of the death of Florence Nightingale in 2010 this paper reviews her work on using information, especially statistics, to analyze and manage patient care and links that to current developments in informatics. It then examines assistive technologies and how they may impact on nursing practice in the future and links these developments to the writings of Florence Nightingale. The paper concludes by suggesting that in progressing towards sustainable and ubiquitous healthcare informatics we need to study history in order to learn from the lessons of Florence Nightingale and other healthcare pioneers.

Online cancer communities as informatics intervention for social support: conceptualization, characterization, and impact.

PubMed

Zhang, Shaodian; O'Carroll Bantum, Erin; Owen, Jason; Bakken, Suzanne; Elhadad, Noémie

2017-03-01

The Internet and social media are revolutionizing how social support is exchanged and perceived, making online health communities (OHCs) one of the most exciting research areas in health informatics. This paper aims to provide a framework for organizing research of OHCs and help identify questions to explore for future informatics research. Based on the framework, we conceptualize OHCs from a social support standpoint and identify variables of interest in characterizing community members. For the sake of this tutorial, we focus our review on online cancer communities. The primary target audience is informaticists interested in understanding ways to characterize OHCs, their members, and the impact of participation, and in creating tools to facilitate outcome research of OHCs. OHC designers and moderators are also among the target audience for this tutorial. The tutorial provides an informatics point of view of online cancer communities, with social support as their leading element. We conceptualize OHCs according to 3 major variables: type of support, source of support, and setting in which the support is exchanged. We summarize current research and synthesize the findings for 2 primary research questions on online cancer communities: (1) the impact of using online social support on an individual's health, and (2) the characteristics of the community, its members, and their interactions. We discuss ways in which future research in informatics in social support and OHCs can ultimately benefit patients. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association.

The Emerging Role of the Chief Research Informatics Officer in Academic Health Centers.

PubMed

Sanchez-Pinto, L Nelson; Mosa, Abu S M; Fultz-Hollis, Kate; Tachinardi, Umberto; Barnett, William K; Embi, Peter J

2017-08-16

The role of the Chief Research Informatics Officer (CRIO) is emerging in academic health centers to address the challenges clinical researchers face in the increasingly digitalized, data-intensive healthcare system. Most current CRIOs are the first officers in their institutions to hold that role. To date there is very little published information about this role and the individuals who serve it. To increase our understanding of the CRIO role, the leaders who serve it, and the factors associated with their success in their organizations. The Clinical Research Informatics Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) conducted a national survey of CRIOs in the United States and convened an expert panel of CRIOs to discuss their experience during the 2016 AMIA Annual Symposium. CRIOs come from diverse academic backgrounds. Most have advance training and extensive experience in biomedical informatics but the majority have been CRIOs for less than three years. CRIOs identify funding, data governance, and advancing data analytics as their major challenges. CRIOs play an important role in helping shape the future of clinical research, innovation, and data analytics in healthcare in their organizations. They share many of the same challenges and see the same opportunities for the future of the field. Better understanding the background and experience of current CRIOs can help define and develop the role in other organizations and enhance their influence in the field of research informatics.

Public Health Platforms: An Emerging Informatics Approach to Health Professional Learning and Development

PubMed Central

Gray, Kathleen

2016-01-01

Health informatics has a major role to play in optimising the management and use of data, information and knowledge in health systems. As health systems undergo digital transformation, it is important to consider informatics approaches not only to curriculum content but also to the design of learning environments and learning activities for health professional learning and development. An example of such an informatics approach is the use of large-scale, integrated public health platforms on the Internet as part of health professional learning and development. This article describes selected examples of such platforms, with a focus on how they may influence the direction of health professional learning and development. Significance for public health The landscape of healthcare systems, public health systems, health research systems and professional education systems is fragmented, with many gaps and silos. More sophistication in the management of health data, information, and knowledge, based on public health informatics expertise, is needed to tackle key issues of prevention, promotion and policy-making. Platform technologies represent an emerging large-scale, highly integrated informatics approach to public health, combining the technologies of Internet, the web, the cloud, social technologies, remote sensing and/or mobile apps into an online infrastructure that can allow more synergies in work within and across these systems. Health professional curricula need updating so that the health workforce has a deep and critical understanding of the way that platform technologies are becoming the foundation of the health sector. PMID:27190977

Some Enlightenments of "Beautiful Rural Construction" on Rural Energy Policy in Beijing—Applying Informatization Means

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhi, Wang; Kongan, Wu

2018-06-01

"Beautiful rural construction" is a systematic project, rural energy is one of the important contents of its construction. In accordance with the concept of eco-friendly construction, Beijing carried out a thorough "structural adjustment of rural energy optimization," "Earthquake energy-saving projects of rural housing" and other measures. By conventional heating technology research in Beijing 13 counties and 142 villages, we predict the future of rural energy will further the implementation of solar heating, electric heating and other new green energy technologies. It is suggested to establish the "Beijing Rural Information Service Platform" and "Beautiful Rural Information Resource Bank" through the means of informatization, which will greatly strengthen the regulation and control of rural people-land relationship and realize the systematic optimization, making the cities and villages have. Space for human survival and sustainable development.

Opportunities at the Intersection of Bioinformatics and Health Informatics

PubMed Central

Miller, Perry L.

2000-01-01

This paper provides a “viewpoint discussion” based on a presentation made to the 2000 Symposium of the American College of Medical Informatics. It discusses potential opportunities for researchers in health informatics to become involved in the rapidly growing field of bioinformatics, using the activities of the Yale Center for Medical Informatics as a case study. One set of opportunities occurs where bioinformatics research itself intersects with the clinical world. Examples include the correlations between individual genetic variation with clinical risk factors, disease presentation, and differential response to treatment; and the implications of including genetic test results in the patient record, which raises clinical decision support issues as well as legal and ethical issues. A second set of opportunities occurs where bioinformatics research can benefit from the technologic expertise and approaches that informaticians have used extensively in the clinical arena. Examples include database organization and knowledge representation, data mining, and modeling and simulation. Microarray technology is discussed as a specific potential area for collaboration. Related questions concern how best to establish collaborations with bioscientists so that the interests and needs of both sets of researchers can be met in a synergistic fashion, and the most appropriate home for bioinformatics in an academic medical center. PMID:10984461

Consumer Health Informatics: Past, Present, and Future of a Rapidly Evolving Domain.

PubMed

Demiris, G

2016-05-20

Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) is a rapidly growing domain within the field of biomedical and health informatics. The objective of this paper is to reflect on the past twenty five years and showcase informatics concepts and applications that led to new models of care and patient empowerment, and to predict future trends and challenges for the next 25 years. We discuss concepts and systems based on a review and analysis of published literature in the consumer health informatics domain in the last 25 years. The field was introduced with the vision that one day patients will be in charge of their own health care using informatics tools and systems. Scientific literature in the field originally focused on ways to assess the quality and validity of available printed health information, only to grow significantly to cover diverse areas such as online communities, social media, and shared decision-making. Concepts such as home telehealth, mHealth, and the quantified-self movement, tools to address transparency of health care organizations, and personal health records and portals provided significant milestones in the field. Consumers are able to actively participate in the decision-making process and to engage in health care processes and decisions. However, challenges such as health literacy and the digital divide have hindered us from maximizing the potential of CHI tools with a significant portion of underserved populations unable to access and utilize them. At the same time, at a global scale consumer tools can increase access to care for underserved populations in developing countries. The field continues to grow and emerging movements such as precision medicine and the sharing economy will introduce new opportunities and challenges.

Integrating DICOM structure reporting (SR) into the medical imaging informatics data grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Jasper; Le, Anh; Liu, Brent

2008-03-01

The Medical Imaging Informatics (MI2) Data Grid developed at the USC Image Processing and Informatics Laboratory enables medical images to be shared securely between multiple imaging centers. Current applications include an imaging-based clinical trial setting where multiple field sites perform image acquisition and a centralized radiology core performs image analysis, often using computer-aided diagnosis tools (CAD) that generate a DICOM-SR to report their findings and measurements. As more and more CAD tools are being developed in the radiology field, the generated DICOM Structure Reports (SR) holding key radiological findings and measurements that are not part of the DICOM image need to be integrated into the existing Medical Imaging Informatics Data Grid with the corresponding imaging studies. We will discuss the significance and method involved in adapting DICOM-SR into the Medical Imaging Informatics Data Grid. The result is a MI2 Data Grid repository from which users can send and receive DICOM-SR objects based on the imaging-based clinical trial application. The services required to extract and categorize information from the structured reports will be discussed, and the workflow to store and retrieve a DICOM-SR file into the existing MI2 Data Grid will be shown.

I-25 truck safety improvements project : local evaluation report

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2004-12-29

The I-25 Truck Safety Improvements project (I-25 TSIP) is the result of a FY98 congressionally designated earmark to support improvements in transportation efficiency, promote safety, increase traffic flow, reduce emissions, improve traveler informat...

Professional values and informatics: what is the connection?

PubMed

Pritchard, Peter

2004-01-01

General practitioners (GPs) need to feel that they are doing a good job in providing care of high quality in a humane manner - that they are "good" doctors. The General Medical Council booklet Good Medical Practice is full of imperatives, but short on values that are the determinants of behaviour. Much has been written on doctors' professional values in the past decade, but it is not easy for individual GPs and teams to define their own values and consider to what extent they live up to them. Values and informatics, at first glance, might seem to have little in common, or even to be mutually antipathetic, and this is possible within the limitations of current technology. However, providing high-quality care involves the application of knowledge, evidence and guidelines, as well as auditing outcomes. For all these tasks, informatics provides the essential means of discovering whether we, as individuals and teams, are living up to our espoused values so that they become values-in-action that drive behaviour. Application of advanced informatics has the potential to improve and measure diagnostic and therapeutic skills. Technical advances are impressive, but their application lags. The next logical step would seem to be a comprehensive and easy-to-use knowledge-based decision support (KBDS) system in a convenient format. Locally based KBDS could facilitate self-audit and provide a step towards the ideal of a "self-organising system" requiring little external audit.

Role of miR-1 expression in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC): A bioinformatics study based on GEO, ArrayExpress microarrays and TCGA database.

PubMed

Yan, Hai-Biao; Huang, Jia-Cheng; Chen, You-Rong; Yao, Jian-Ni; Cen, Wei-Ning; Li, Jia-Yi; Jiang, Yi-Fan; Chen, Gang; Li, Sheng-Hua

2018-02-01

To investigate the clinical value and potential molecular mechanisms of miR-1 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). We searched the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), ArrayExpress, several online publication databases and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Continuous variable meta-analysis and diagnostic meta-analysis were conducted, both in Stata 14, to show the expression of miR-1 in ccRCC. Furthermore, we acquired the potential targets of miR-1 from datasets that transfected miR-1 into ccRCC cells, online prediction databases, differentially expressed genes from TCGA and literature. Subsequently bioinformatics analysis based on aforementioned selected target genes was conducted. The combined effect was -0.92 with the 95% confidence interval (CI) of -1.08 to -0.77 based on fixed effect model (I 2  = 81.3%, P < 0.001). No publication bias was found in our investigation. Sensitivity analysis showed that GSE47582 and 2 TCGA studies might cause heterogeneity. After eliminating them, the combined effect was -0.47 (95%CI: -0.78, -0.16) with I 2  = 18.3%. As for the diagnostic meta-analysis, the combined sensitivity and specificity were 0.90 (95%CI: 0.61, 0.98) and 0.63 (95%CI: 0.39, 0.82). The area under the curve (AUC) in the summarized receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was 0.83 (95%CI: 0.80, 0.86). No publication bias was found (P = 0.15). We finally got 67 genes which were defined the promising target genes of miR-1 in ccRCC. The most three significant KEGG pathways based on the aforementioned genes were Complement and coagulation cascades, ECM-receptor interaction and Focal adhesion. The downregulation of miR-1 might play an important role in ccRCC by targeting its target genes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Using Focused Laboratory Management and Quality Improvement Projects to Enhance Resident Training and Foster Scholarship

PubMed Central

Ford, Bradley A.; Klutts, J. Stacey; Jensen, Chris S.; Briggs, Angela S.; Robinson, Robert A.; Bruch, Leslie A.; Karandikar, Nitin J.

2017-01-01

Training in patient safety, quality, and management is widely recognized as an important element of graduate medical education. These concepts have been intertwined in pathology graduate medical education for many years, although training programs face challenges in creating explicit learning opportunities in these fields. Tangibly involving pathology residents in management and quality improvement projects has the potential to teach and reinforce key concepts and further fulfill Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education goals for pursuing projects related to patient safety and quality improvement. In this report, we present our experience at a pathology residency program (University of Iowa) in engaging pathology residents in projects related to practical issues of laboratory management, process improvement, and informatics. In this program, at least 1 management/quality improvement project, typically performed during a clinical chemistry/management rotation, was required and ideally resulted in a journal publication. The residency program also initiated a monthly management/informatics series for pathology externs, residents, and fellows that covers a wide range of topics. Since 2010, all pathology residents at the University of Iowa have completed at least 1 management/quality improvement project. Many of the projects involved aspects of laboratory test utilization, with some projects focused on other areas such as human resources, informatics, or process improvement. Since 2012, 31 peer-reviewed journal articles involving effort from 26 residents have been published. Multiple projects resulted in changes in ongoing practice, particularly within the hospital electronic health record. Focused management/quality improvement projects involving pathology residents can result in both meaningful quality improvement and scholarly output. PMID:28913416

Using Focused Laboratory Management and Quality Improvement Projects to Enhance Resident Training and Foster Scholarship.

PubMed

Krasowski, Matthew D; Ford, Bradley A; Klutts, J Stacey; Jensen, Chris S; Briggs, Angela S; Robinson, Robert A; Bruch, Leslie A; Karandikar, Nitin J

2017-01-01

Training in patient safety, quality, and management is widely recognized as an important element of graduate medical education. These concepts have been intertwined in pathology graduate medical education for many years, although training programs face challenges in creating explicit learning opportunities in these fields. Tangibly involving pathology residents in management and quality improvement projects has the potential to teach and reinforce key concepts and further fulfill Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education goals for pursuing projects related to patient safety and quality improvement. In this report, we present our experience at a pathology residency program (University of Iowa) in engaging pathology residents in projects related to practical issues of laboratory management, process improvement, and informatics. In this program, at least 1 management/quality improvement project, typically performed during a clinical chemistry/management rotation, was required and ideally resulted in a journal publication. The residency program also initiated a monthly management/informatics series for pathology externs, residents, and fellows that covers a wide range of topics. Since 2010, all pathology residents at the University of Iowa have completed at least 1 management/quality improvement project. Many of the projects involved aspects of laboratory test utilization, with some projects focused on other areas such as human resources, informatics, or process improvement. Since 2012, 31 peer-reviewed journal articles involving effort from 26 residents have been published. Multiple projects resulted in changes in ongoing practice, particularly within the hospital electronic health record. Focused management/quality improvement projects involving pathology residents can result in both meaningful quality improvement and scholarly output.

2016 Year-in-Review of Clinical and Consumer Informatics: Analysis and Visualization of Keywords and Topics.

PubMed

Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Lee, Joo Yun; On, Jeongah; Lee, Ji Hyun; Jung, Hyesil; Park, Seul Ki

2017-04-01

The objective of this study was to review and visualize the medical informatics field over the previous 12 months according to the frequencies of keywords and topics in papers published in the top four journals in the field and in Healthcare Informatics Research (HIR) , an official journal of the Korean Society of Medical Informatics. A six-person team conducted an extensive review of the literature on clinical and consumer informatics. The literature was searched using keywords employed in the American Medical Informatics Association year-in-review process and organized into 14 topics used in that process. Data were analyzed using word clouds, social network analysis, and association rules. The literature search yielded 370 references and 1,123 unique keywords. 'Electronic Health Record' (EHR) (78.6%) was the most frequently appearing keyword in the articles published in the five studied journals, followed by 'telemedicine' (2.1%). EHR (37.6%) was also the most frequently studied topic area, followed by clinical informatics (12.0%). However, 'telemedicine' (17.0%) was the most frequently appearing keyword in articles published in HIR , followed by 'telecommunications' (4.5%). Telemedicine (47.1%) was the most frequently studied topic area, followed by EHR (14.7%). The study findings reflect the Korean government's efforts to introduce telemedicine into the Korean healthcare system and reactions to this from the stakeholders associated with telemedicine.

Pre-School Teachers' Informatics and Information Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tatkovic, Nevenka; Ruzic, Maja; Pecaric, Dilda

2006-01-01

The life and activities of every man in the period of transition from the second into the third millennium have been marked by epochal changes which appear as the consequence of scientific and technological revolution dominated by highly developed information and communication technology. Informatics and information education based on information…

People and ideas in medical informatics - a half century review.

PubMed

van Bemmel, J H

2011-01-01

OBJECTIVE. Reviewing the onset and the rapid changes to make realistic predictions on the future of medical informatics. METHODS. Pointing to the contributions of the early pioneers, who had their roots in other disciplines and by illustrating that from the onset an interdisciplinary approach was characteristic for our field. RESULTS. Some of the reasons for the changes in medical informatics are that nobody was able to predict the advent of the personal computer in the 1970s, the world-wide web in 1991, and the public start of the Internet in 1992, but foremost that nobody expected that it was not primarily the hardware or the software, but human factors that would be crucial for successful applications of computers in health care. In the past sometimes unrealistic expectations were held, such as on the impact of medical decision-support systems, or on the overly optimistic contributions of electronic health records. Although the technology is widely available, some applications appear to be far more complex than expected. Health care processes can seldom be fully standardized. Humans enter at least in two very different roles in the loop of information processing: as subjects conducting care - the clinicians - and as subjects that are the objects of care - the patients. CONCLUSIONS. Medical informatics lacks a specific methodology; methods are borrowed from adjacent disciplines such as physics, mathematics and, of course, computer science. Human factors play a major role in applying computers in health care. Everyone pursuing a career in biomedical informatics needs to be very aware of this. It is to be expected that the quality of health care will increasingly be assessed by computer systems to fulfill the requirements of medical evidence.

Informatics applied to cytology

PubMed Central

Hornish, Maryanne; Goulart, Robert A.

2008-01-01

Automation and emerging information technologies are being adopted by cytology laboratories to augment Pap test screening and improve diagnostic accuracy. As a result, informatics, the application of computers and information systems to information management, has become essential for the successful operation of the cytopathology laboratory. This review describes how laboratory information management systems can be used to achieve an automated and seamless workflow process. The utilization of software, electronic databases and spreadsheets to perform necessary quality control measures are discussed, as well as a Lean production system and Six Sigma approach, to reduce errors in the cytopathology laboratory. PMID:19495402

Systematic Review of Medical Informatics-Supported Medication Decision Making.

PubMed

Melton, Brittany L

2017-01-01

This systematic review sought to assess the applications and implications of current medical informatics-based decision support systems related to medication prescribing and use. Studies published between January 2006 and July 2016 which were indexed in PubMed and written in English were reviewed, and 39 studies were ultimately included. Most of the studies looked at computerized provider order entry or clinical decision support systems. Most studies examined decision support systems as a means of reducing errors or risk, particularly associated with medication prescribing, whereas a few studies evaluated the impact medical informatics-based decision support systems have on workflow or operations efficiency. Most studies identified benefits associated with decision support systems, but some indicate there is room for improvement.

Eco-informatics for decision makers advancing a research agenda

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cushing, J.B.; Wilson, T.; Brandt, L.; Gregg, V.; Spengler, S.; Borning, A.; Delcambre, L.; Bowker, G.; Frame, M.; Fulop, J.; Hert, C.; Hovy, E.; Jones, J.; Landis, E.; Schnase, J.L.; Schweik, C.; Sonntag, W.; ,

2005-01-01

Resource managers often face significant information technology (IT) problems when integrating ecological or environmental information to make decisions. At a workshop sponsored by the NSF and USGS in December 2004, university researchers, natural resource managers, and information managers met to articulate IT problems facing ecology and environmental decision makers. Decision making IT problems were identified in five areas: 1) policy, 2) data presentation, 3) data gaps, 4) tools, and 5) indicators. To alleviate those problems, workshop participants recommended specific informatics research in modeling and simulation, data quality, information integration and ontologies, and social and human aspects. This paper reports the workshop findings, and briefly compares these with research that traditionally falls under the emerging eco-informatics rubric. ?? Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.

A curricula-based comparison of biomedical and health informatics programs in the USA

PubMed Central

Hemminger, Bradley M

2011-01-01

Objective The field of Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) continues to define itself, and there are many educational programs offering ‘informatics’ degrees with varied foci. The goal of this study was to develop a scheme for systematic comparison of programs across the entire BMHI spectrum and to identify commonalities among informatics curricula. Design Guided by several published competency sets, a grounded theory approach was used to develop a program/curricula categorization scheme based on the descriptions of 636 courses offered by 73 public health, nursing, health, medical, and bioinformatics programs in the USA. The scheme was then used to compare the programs in the aforementioned five informatics disciplines. Results The authors developed a Course-Based Informatics Program Categorization (CBIPC) scheme that can be used both to classify coursework for any BMHI educational program and to compare programs from the same or related disciplines. The application of CBIPC scheme to the analysis of public health, nursing, health, medical, and bioinformatics programs reveals distinct intradisciplinary curricular patterns and a common core of courses across the entire BMHI education domain. Limitations The study is based on descriptions of courses from the university's webpages. Thus, it is limited to sampling courses at one moment in time, and classification for the coding scheme is based primarily on course titles and course descriptions. Conclusion The CBIPC scheme combines empirical data about educational curricula from diverse informatics programs and several published competency sets. It also provides a foundation for discussion of BMHI education as a whole and can help define subdisciplinary competencies. PMID:21292707

Research Strategies for Biomedical and Health Informatics. Some Thought-provoking and Critical Proposals to Encourage Scientific Debate on the Nature of Good Research in Medical Informatics.

PubMed

Haux, Reinhold; Kulikowski, Casimir A; Bakken, Suzanne; de Lusignan, Simon; Kimura, Michio; Koch, Sabine; Mantas, John; Maojo, Victor; Marschollek, Michael; Martin-Sanchez, Fernando; Moen, Anne; Park, Hyeoun-Ae; Sarkar, Indra N; Leong, Tze Yun; McCray, Alexa T

2017-01-25

Medical informatics, or biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), has become an established scientific discipline. In all such disciplines there is a certain inertia to persist in focusing on well-established research areas and to hold on to well-known research methodologies rather than adopting new ones, which may be more appropriate. To search for answers to the following questions: What are research fields in informatics, which are not being currently adequately addressed, and which methodological approaches might be insufficiently used? Do we know about reasons? What could be consequences of change for research and for education? Outstanding informatics scientists were invited to three panel sessions on this topic in leading international conferences (MIE 2015, Medinfo 2015, HEC 2016) in order to get their answers to these questions. A variety of themes emerged in the set of answers provided by the panellists. Some panellists took the theoretical foundations of the field for granted, while several questioned whether the field was actually grounded in a strong theoretical foundation. Panellists proposed a range of suggestions for new or improved approaches, methodologies, and techniques to enhance the BMHI research agenda. The field of BMHI is on the one hand maturing as an academic community and intellectual endeavour. On the other hand vendor-supplied solutions may be too readily and uncritically accepted in health care practice. There is a high chance that BMHI will continue to flourish as an important discipline; its innovative interventions might then reach the original objectives of advancing science and improving health care outcomes.

Consumer Health Informatics: Past, Present, and Future of a Rapidly Evolving Domain

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Summary Objectives Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) is a rapidly growing domain within the field of biomedical and health informatics. The objective of this paper is to reflect on the past twenty five years and showcase informatics concepts and applications that led to new models of care and patient empowerment, and to predict future trends and challenges for the next 25 years. Methods We discuss concepts and systems based on a review and analysis of published literature in the consumer health informatics domain in the last 25 years. Results The field was introduced with the vision that one day patients will be in charge of their own health care using informatics tools and systems. Scientific literature in the field originally focused on ways to assess the quality and validity of available printed health information, only to grow significantly to cover diverse areas such as online communities, social media, and shared decision-making. Concepts such as home telehealth, mHealth, and the quantified-self movement, tools to address transparency of health care organizations, and personal health records and portals provided significant milestones in the field. Conclusion Consumers are able to actively participate in the decision-making process and to engage in health care processes and decisions. However, challenges such as health literacy and the digital divide have hindered us from maximizing the potential of CHI tools with a significant portion of underserved populations unable to access and utilize them. At the same time, at a global scale consumer tools can increase access to care for underserved populations in developing countries. The field continues to grow and emerging movements such as precision medicine and the sharing economy will introduce new opportunities and challenges. PMID:27199196

Clinical Research Informatics Contributions from 2015.

PubMed

Daniel, C; Choquet, R

2016-11-10

To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select best papers published in 2015. A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH and free terms search over PubMed on Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) was performed followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. A consensus meeting between the two section editors and the editorial team was finally organized to conclude on the selection of best papers. Among the 579 returned papers published in the past year in the various areas of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) - i) methods supporting clinical research, ii) data sharing and interoperability, iii) re-use of healthcare data for research, iv) patient recruitment and engagement, v) data privacy, security and regulatory issues and vi) policy and perspectives - the full review process selected four best papers. The first selected paper evaluates the capability of the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) Operational Data Model (ODM) to support the representation of case report forms (in both the design stage and with patient level data) during a complete clinical study lifecycle. The second selected paper describes a prototype for secondary use of electronic health records data captured in non-standardized text. The third selected paper presents a privacy preserving electronic health record linkage tool and the last selected paper describes how big data use in US relies on access to health information governed by varying and often misunderstood legal requirements and ethical considerations. A major trend in the 2015 publications is the analysis of observational, "nonexperimental" information and the potential biases and confounding factors hidden in the data that will have to be carefully taken into account to validate new predictive models. In addiction, researchers have to understand

Informatics Metrics and Measures for a Smart Public Health Systems Approach: Information Science Perspective

PubMed Central

Shea, Christopher Michael

2017-01-01

Public health informatics is an evolving domain in which practices constantly change to meet the demands of a highly complex public health and healthcare delivery system. Given the emergence of various concepts, such as learning health systems, smart health systems, and adaptive complex health systems, health informatics professionals would benefit from a common set of measures and capabilities to inform our modeling, measuring, and managing of health system “smartness.” Here, we introduce the concepts of organizational complexity, problem/issue complexity, and situational awareness as three codependent drivers of smart public health systems characteristics. We also propose seven smart public health systems measures and capabilities that are important in a public health informatics professional's toolkit. PMID:28167999

Informatics Metrics and Measures for a Smart Public Health Systems Approach: Information Science Perspective.

PubMed

Carney, Timothy Jay; Shea, Christopher Michael

2017-01-01

Public health informatics is an evolving domain in which practices constantly change to meet the demands of a highly complex public health and healthcare delivery system. Given the emergence of various concepts, such as learning health systems, smart health systems, and adaptive complex health systems, health informatics professionals would benefit from a common set of measures and capabilities to inform our modeling, measuring, and managing of health system "smartness." Here, we introduce the concepts of organizational complexity, problem/issue complexity, and situational awareness as three codependent drivers of smart public health systems characteristics. We also propose seven smart public health systems measures and capabilities that are important in a public health informatics professional's toolkit.

Health Informatics via Machine Learning for the Clinical Management of Patients.

PubMed

Clifton, D A; Niehaus, K E; Charlton, P; Colopy, G W

2015-08-13

To review how health informatics systems based on machine learning methods have impacted the clinical management of patients, by affecting clinical practice. We reviewed literature from 2010-2015 from databases such as Pubmed, IEEE xplore, and INSPEC, in which methods based on machine learning are likely to be reported. We bring together a broad body of literature, aiming to identify those leading examples of health informatics that have advanced the methodology of machine learning. While individual methods may have further examples that might be added, we have chosen some of the most representative, informative exemplars in each case. Our survey highlights that, while much research is taking place in this high-profile field, examples of those that affect the clinical management of patients are seldom found. We show that substantial progress is being made in terms of methodology, often by data scientists working in close collaboration with clinical groups. Health informatics systems based on machine learning are in their infancy and the translation of such systems into clinical management has yet to be performed at scale.

Genetics, biometrics and the informatization of the body.

PubMed

van der Ploeg, Irma

2007-01-01

"Genetics" is a term covering a wide set of theories, practices, and technologies, only some of which overlap with the practices and technologies of biometrics. In this paper some current technological developments relating to biometric applications of genetics will be highlighted. Next, the author will elaborate the notion of the informatization of the body, by means of a brief philosophical detour on the dualisms of language and reality, words and things. In the subsequent sections she will then draw out some of the questions relevant to the purposes of Biometrics Identification Technology Ethics (BITE), and discuss the ethical problems associated with the informatization of the body. There are, however some problems and limitations to the currently dominant ethical discourse to deal with all things ethical in relation to information technology in general, and biometrics or genetics in particular. The final section will discuss some of these meta-problems.

Instantiating informatics in nursing practice for integrated patient centred holistic models of care: a discussion paper.

PubMed

Hussey, Pamela A; Kennedy, Margaret Ann

2016-05-01

A discussion on how informatics knowledge and competencies can enable nursing to instantiate transition to integrated models of care. Costs of traditional models of care are no longer sustainable consequent to the spiralling incidence and costs of chronic illness. The international community looks towards technology-enabled solutions to support a shift towards integrated patient-centred models of care. Discussion paper. A search of the literature was performed dating from 2000-2015 and a purposeful data sample based on relevance to building the discussion was included. The holistic perspective of nursing knowledge can support and advance integrated healthcare models. Informatics skills are key for the profession to play a leadership role in design, implementation and operation of next generation health care. However, evidence suggests that nursing engagement with informatics strategic development for healthcare provision is currently variable. A statistically significant need exists to progress health care towards integrated models of care. Strategic and tactical plans that are robustly pragmatic with nursing insights and expertise are an essential component to achieve effective healthcare provision. To avoid exclusion in the discourse dominated by management and technology experts, nursing leaders must develop and actively promote the advancement of nursing informatics skills. For knowledge in nursing practice to flourish in contemporary health care, nurse leaders will need to incorporate informatics for optimal translation and interpretation. Defined nursing leadership roles informed by informatics are essential to generate concrete solutions sustaining nursing practice in integrated care models. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Multidisciplinary PBL Robot Control Project in Automation and Electronic Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hassan, Houcine; Domínguez, Carlos; Martínez, Juan-Miguel; Perles, Angel; Capella, Juan-Vicente; Albaladejo, José

2015-01-01

This paper presents a multidisciplinary problem-based learning (PBL) project consisting of the development of a robot arm prototype and the implementation of its control system. The project is carried out as part of Industrial Informatics (II), a compulsory third-year course in the Automation and Electronic Engineering (AEE) degree program at the…

A Health Informatics Curriculum Congruent with IS 2010 and IMIA Recommendations for an Undergraduate Degree

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Longenecker, Herbert E., Jr.; Campbell, S. Matt; Landry, Jeffrey P.; Pardue, Harold; Daigle, Roy J.

2012-01-01

In addition to being a relevant program for health information technology workers, a recently proposed Health Informatics program was designed with additional objectives in mind: that the program is compatible with the IS 2010 Model Curriculum and that it satisfies the International Medical Informatics Association recommendation for undergraduate…

Interdisciplinary training to build an informatics workforce for precision medicine

PubMed Central

Williams, Marc S.; Ritchie, Marylyn D.; Payne, Philip R.O.

2015-01-01

The proposed Precision Medicine Initiative has the potential to transform medical care in the future through a shift from interventions based on evidence from population studies and empiric response to ones that account for a range of individual factors that more reliably predict response and outcomes for the patient. Many things are needed to realize this vision, but one of the most critical is an informatics workforce that has broad interdisciplinary training in basic science, applied research and clinical implementation. Current approaches to informatics training do not support this requirement. We present a collaborative model of training that has the potential to produce a workforce prepared for the challenges of implementing precision medicine. PMID:27054076

10 years experience with pioneering open access publishing in health informatics: the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR).

PubMed

Eysenbach, Gunther

2010-01-01

Peer-reviewed journals remain important vehicles for knowledge transfer and dissemination in health informatics, yet, their format, processes and business models are changing only slowly. Up to the end of last century, it was common for individual researchers and scientific organizations to leave the business of knowledge transfer to professional publishers, signing away their rights to the works in the process, which in turn impeded wider dissemination. Traditional medical informatics journals are poorly cited and the visibility and uptake of articles beyond the medical informatics community remain limited. In 1999, the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR; http://www.jmir.org) was launched, featuring several innovations including 1) ownership and copyright retained by the authors, 2) electronic-only, "lean" non-for-profit publishing, 3) openly accessible articles with a reversed business model (author pays instead of reader pays), 4) technological innovations such as automatic XML tagging and reference checking, on-the-fly PDF generation from XML, etc., enabling wide distribution in various bibliographic and full-text databases. In the past 10 years, despite limited resources, the journal has emerged as a leading journal in health informatics, and is presently ranked the top journal in the medical informatics and health services research categories by impact factor. The paper summarizes some of the features of the Journal, and uses bibliometric and access data to compare the influence of the Journal on the discipline of medical informatics and other disciplines. While traditional medical informatics journals are primarily cited by other Medical Informatics journals (33%-46% of citations), JMIR papers are to a more often cited by "end-users" (policy, public health, clinical journals), which may be partly attributable to the "open access advantage".

The Cancer Genome Atlas Pan-Cancer analysis project.

PubMed

Weinstein, John N; Collisson, Eric A; Mills, Gordon B; Shaw, Kenna R Mills; Ozenberger, Brad A; Ellrott, Kyle; Shmulevich, Ilya; Sander, Chris; Stuart, Joshua M

2013-10-01

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network has profiled and analyzed large numbers of human tumors to discover molecular aberrations at the DNA, RNA, protein and epigenetic levels. The resulting rich data provide a major opportunity to develop an integrated picture of commonalities, differences and emergent themes across tumor lineages. The Pan-Cancer initiative compares the first 12 tumor types profiled by TCGA. Analysis of the molecular aberrations and their functional roles across tumor types will teach us how to extend therapies effective in one cancer type to others with a similar genomic profile.

Advanced Spacesuit Informatics Software Design for Power, Avionics and Software Version 2.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wright, Theodore W.

2016-01-01

A description of the software design for the 2016 edition of the Informatics computer assembly of the NASAs Advanced Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AEMU), also called the Advanced Spacesuit. The Informatics system is an optional part of the spacesuit assembly. It adds a graphical interface for displaying suit status, timelines, procedures, and warning information. It also provides an interface to the suit mounted camera for recording still images, video, and audio field notes.

Big Data: Are Biomedical and Health Informatics Training Programs Ready?

PubMed Central

Hersh, W.; Ganesh, A. U. Jai

2014-01-01

Summary Objectives The growing volume and diversity of health and biomedical data indicate that the era of Big Data has arrived for healthcare. This has many implications for informatics, not only in terms of implementing and evaluating information systems, but also for the work and training of informatics researchers and professionals. This article addresses the question: What do biomedical and health informaticians working in analytics and Big Data need to know? Methods We hypothesize a set of skills that we hope will be discussed among academic and other informaticians. Results The set of skills includes: Programming - especially with data-oriented tools, such as SQL and statistical programming languages; Statistics - working knowledge to apply tools and techniques; Domain knowledge - depending on one’s area of work, bioscience or health care; and Communication - being able to understand needs of people and organizations, and articulate results back to them. Conclusions Biomedical and health informatics educational programs must introduce concepts of analytics, Big Data, and the underlying skills to use and apply them into their curricula. The development of new coursework should focus on those who will become experts, with training aiming to provide skills in “deep analytical talent” as well as those who need knowledge to support such individuals. PMID:25123740

Trends in biomedical informatics: automated topic analysis of JAMIA articles

PubMed Central

Wang, Shuang; Jiang, Chao; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Kim, Hyeon-Eui; Sun, Jimeng; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

2015-01-01

Biomedical Informatics is a growing interdisciplinary field in which research topics and citation trends have been evolving rapidly in recent years. To analyze these data in a fast, reproducible manner, automation of certain processes is needed. JAMIA is a “generalist” journal for biomedical informatics. Its articles reflect the wide range of topics in informatics. In this study, we retrieved Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms and citations of JAMIA articles published between 2009 and 2014. We use tensors (i.e., multidimensional arrays) to represent the interaction among topics, time and citations, and applied tensor decomposition to automate the analysis. The trends represented by tensors were then carefully interpreted and the results were compared with previous findings based on manual topic analysis. A list of most cited JAMIA articles, their topics, and publication trends over recent years is presented. The analyses confirmed previous studies and showed that, from 2012 to 2014, the number of articles related to MeSH terms Methods, Organization & Administration, and Algorithms increased significantly both in number of publications and citations. Citation trends varied widely by topic, with Natural Language Processing having a large number of citations in particular years, and Medical Record Systems, Computerized remaining a very popular topic in all years. PMID:26555018

Microcomputers and Informatics Education at the University Level.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyanov, Todor

1984-01-01

Because of the widespread use of microcomputers in Bulgaria, informatics education for all college students is considered both possible and necessary. Uses of microcomputers in various disciplines are described, including those in mathematics/mechanics, the experimental sciences, and humanities. Brief comments on computer-assisted-learning and…

Incorporating Health Information Technology and Pharmacy Informatics in a Pharmacy Professional Didactic Curriculum -with a Team-based Learning Approach.

PubMed

Hincapie, Ana L; Cutler, Timothy W; Fingado, Amanda R

2016-08-25

Objective. To incorporate a pharmacy informatics program in the didactic curriculum of a team-based learning institution and to assess students' knowledge of and confidence with health informatics during the course. Design. A previously developed online pharmacy informatics course was adapted and implemented into a team-based learning (TBL) 3-credit-hour drug information course for doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students in their second didactic year. During a period of five weeks (15 contact hours), students used the online pharmacy informatics modules as part of their readiness assurance process. Additional material was developed to comply with the TBL principles. Online pre/postsurveys were administered to evaluate knowledge gained and students' perceptions of the informatics program. Assessment. Eighty-three second-year students (84% response rate) completed the surveys. Participants' knowledge of electronic health records, computerized physician order entry, pharmacy information systems, and clinical decision support was significantly improved. Additionally, their confidence significantly improved in terms of describing health informatics terminology, describing the benefits and barriers of using health information technology, and understanding reasons for systematically processing health information. Conclusion. Students responded favorably to the incorporation of pharmacy informatics content into a drug information course using a TBL approach. Students met the learning objectives of seven thematic areas and had positive attitudes toward the course after its completion.

Overexpression of LncRNA HOTAIR is Associated with Poor Prognosis in Thyroid Carcinoma: A Study Based on TCGA and GEO Data.

PubMed

Li, Hong-Mei; Yang, Hong; Wen, Dong-Yue; Luo, Yi-Huan; Liang, Chun-Yan; Pan, Deng-Hua; Ma, Wei; Chen, Gang; He, Yun; Chen, Jun-Qiang

2017-05-01

The role of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) HOX transcript antisense RNA (HOTAIR) in thyroid carcinoma (TC) remains unclear. The current study was aimed to assess the clinical value of HOTAIR expression levels in TC based on publically available data and to evaluate its potential signaling pathways. The expression data of HOTAIR and clinical information concerning TC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), respectively. Furthermore, 3 online biological databases, Starbase, Cbioportal, and Multi Experiment Matrix, were used to identify HOTAIR-related genes in TC. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Panther pathway analyses were then undertaken to study the most enriched signaling pathways in TC (EASE score<0.1, Bonferroni<0.05). The TCGA results demonstrated that the expression level of HOTAIR in TC tissues was significantly increased compared with non-cancerous tissues (p<0.001). HOTAIR over-expression was significantly associated with poor survival in TC patients (p=0.03). Meta-analyses of GEO datasets revealed a trend consistent with the above results on HOTAIR expression levels in TC (SMD=0.23; 95%CI, 0.00-0.45; p=0.047). Finally, the results of functional analysis for HOTAIR-related genes indicated that HOTAIR might participate in tumorigenesis via the Wnt signaling pathway. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that HOTAIR may be involved in thyroid carcinogenesis, and the over-expression of HOTAIR could act as a biomarker associated with a poor outcome in TC patients. Moreover, the Wnt signaling pathway may be the key pathway regulated by HOTAIR in TC. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Materials Informatics: The Materials ``Gene'' and Big Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajan, Krishna

2015-07-01

Materials informatics provides the foundations for a new paradigm of materials discovery. It shifts our emphasis from one of solely searching among large volumes of data that may be generated by experiment or computation to one of targeted materials discovery via high-throughput identification of the key factors (i.e., “genes”) and via showing how these factors can be quantitatively integrated by statistical learning methods into design rules (i.e., “gene sequencing”) governing targeted materials functionality. However, a critical challenge in discovering these materials genes is the difficulty in unraveling the complexity of the data associated with numerous factors including noise, uncertainty, and the complex diversity of data that one needs to consider (i.e., Big Data). In this article, we explore one aspect of materials informatics, namely how one can efficiently explore for new knowledge in regimes of structure-property space, especially when no reasonable selection pathways based on theory or clear trends in observations exist among an almost infinite set of possibilities.

Integration of Telemedicine in Graduate Medical Informatics Education

PubMed Central

Demiris, George

2003-01-01

An essential part of health informatics is telemedicine, the use of advanced telecommunications technologies to bridge distance and support health care delivery and education. This report discusses the integration of telemedicine into a medical informatics curriculum and, specifically, a framework for a telemedicine course. Within this framework, the objectives and exit competencies are presented and course sections are described: definitions, introduction to technical aspects of telemedicine, evolution of telemedicine and its impact on health care delivery, success and failure factors, and legal and ethical issues. The emphasis is on literature review tools, practical exposure to products and applications, and problem-based learning. Given the rapid advances in the telecommunication field, keeping the course material up to date becomes a challenge for the instructor who at the same time aims to equip students with the knowledge and tools they will need in their future role as decision makers to detect a need for, design, implement, maintain, or evaluate a telemedicine application. PMID:12668696

Drilling informatics: data-driven challenges of scientific drilling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamada, Yasuhiro; Kyaw, Moe; Saito, Sanny

2017-04-01

The primary aim of scientific drilling is to precisely understand the dynamic nature of the Earth. This is the reason why we investigate the subsurface materials (rock and fluid including microbial community) existing under particular environmental conditions. This requires sample collection and analytical data production from the samples, and in-situ data measurement at boreholes. Current available data comes from cores, cuttings, mud logging, geophysical logging, and exploration geophysics, but these datasets are difficult to be integrated because of their different kinds and scales. Now we are producing more useful datasets to fill the gap between the exiting data and extracting more information from such datasets and finally integrating the information. In particular, drilling parameters are very useful datasets as geomechanical properties. We believe such approach, 'drilling informatics', would be the most appropriate to obtain the comprehensive and dynamic picture of our scientific target, such as the seismogenic fault zone and the Moho discontinuity surface. This presentation introduces our initiative and current achievements of drilling informatics.

Behavioral Informatics and Computational Modeling in Support of Proactive Health Management and Care

PubMed Central

Jimison, Holly B.; Korhonen, Ilkka; Gordon, Christine M.; Saranummi, Niilo

2016-01-01

Health-related behaviors are among the most significant determinants of health and quality of life. Improving health behavior is an effective way to enhance health outcomes and mitigate the escalating challenges arising from an increasingly aging population and the proliferation of chronic diseases. Although it has been difficult to obtain lasting improvements in health behaviors on a wide scale, advances at the intersection of technology and behavioral science may provide the tools to address this challenge. In this paper, we describe a vision and an approach to improve health behavior interventions using the tools of behavioral informatics, an emerging transdisciplinary research domain based on system-theoretic principles in combination with behavioral science and information technology. The field of behavioral informatics has the potential to optimize interventions through monitoring, assessing, and modeling behavior in support of providing tailored and timely interventions. We describe the components of a closed-loop system for health interventions. These components range from fine grain sensor characterizations to individual-based models of behavior change. We provide an example of a research health coaching platform that incorporates a closed-loop intervention based on these multiscale models. Using this early prototype, we illustrate how the optimized and personalized methodology and technology can support self-management and remote care. We note that despite the existing examples of research projects and our platform, significant future research is required to convert this vision to full-scale implementations. PMID:26441408

The deployment of a tissue request tracking system for the CHTN: a case study in managing change in informatics for biobanking operations

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background Managing change has not only been recognized as an important topic in medical informatics, but it has become increasingly important in translational informatics. The move to share data, together with the increasing complexity and volume of the data, has precipitated a transition from locally stored worksheet and flat files to relational data bases with object oriented interfaces for data storage and retrieval. While the transition from simple to complex data structures, mirroring the transition from simple to complex experimental technologies, seems natural, the human factor often fails to be adequately addressed leading to failures in managing change. Methods We describe here a case study in change management applied to an application in translational informatics that touches upon changes in hardware, software, data models, procedures, and terminology standards. We use the classic paper by Riley and Lorenzi to dissect the problems that arose, the solutions that were implemented, and the lessons learned. Results The entire project from requirements gathering through completion of migration of the system took three years. Double data entry into the old and new systems persisted for six months. Contributing factors hindering progress and solutions to facilitate managing the change were identified in seven of the areas identified by Riley and Lorenzi: communications, cultural changes in work practice, scope creep, leadership and organizational issues, and training. Conclusions Detailed documentation of the agreed upon requirements for the new system along with ongoing review of the sources of resistance to change as defined by Riley and Lorenzi were the most important steps taken that contributed to the success of the project. Cultural changes in tissue collection mandated by standards requirements introduced by the Cancer Bioinformatics Grid (CaBIG®) and excessive reliance on the outgoing system during a lengthy period of dual data entry were the primary

The deployment of a tissue request tracking system for the CHTN: a case study in managing change in informatics for biobanking operations.

PubMed

Edgerton, Mary E; Grizzle, William E; Washington, M Kay

2010-06-02

Managing change has not only been recognized as an important topic in medical informatics, but it has become increasingly important in translational informatics. The move to share data, together with the increasing complexity and volume of the data, has precipitated a transition from locally stored worksheet and flat files to relational data bases with object oriented interfaces for data storage and retrieval. While the transition from simple to complex data structures, mirroring the transition from simple to complex experimental technologies, seems natural, the human factor often fails to be adequately addressed leading to failures in managing change. We describe here a case study in change management applied to an application in translational informatics that touches upon changes in hardware, software, data models, procedures, and terminology standards. We use the classic paper by Riley and Lorenzi to dissect the problems that arose, the solutions that were implemented, and the lessons learned. The entire project from requirements gathering through completion of migration of the system took three years. Double data entry into the old and new systems persisted for six months. Contributing factors hindering progress and solutions to facilitate managing the change were identified in seven of the areas identified by Riley and Lorenzi: communications, cultural changes in work practice, scope creep, leadership and organizational issues, and training. Detailed documentation of the agreed upon requirements for the new system along with ongoing review of the sources of resistance to change as defined by Riley and Lorenzi were the most important steps taken that contributed to the success of the project. Cultural changes in tissue collection mandated by standards requirements introduced by the Cancer Bioinformatics Grid (CaBIG) and excessive reliance on the outgoing system during a lengthy period of dual data entry were the primary sources of resistance to change.

Use of a wiki as an interactive teaching tool in pathology residency education: Experience with a genomics, research, and informatics in pathology course.

PubMed

Park, Seung; Parwani, Anil; Macpherson, Trevor; Pantanowitz, Liron

2012-01-01

The need for informatics and genomics training in pathology is critical, yet limited resources for such training are available. In this study we sought to critically test the hypothesis that the incorporation of a wiki (a collaborative writing and publication tool with roots in "Web 2.0") in a combined informatics and genomics course could both (1) serve as an interactive, collaborative educational resource and reference and (2) actively engage trainees by requiring the creation and sharing of educational materials. A 2-week full-time course at our institution covering genomics, research, and pathology informatics (GRIP) was taught by 36 faculty to 18 second- and third-year pathology residents. The course content included didactic lectures and hands-on demonstrations of technology (e.g., whole-slide scanning, telepathology, and statistics software). Attendees were given pre- and posttests. Residents were trained to use wiki technology (MediaWiki) and requested to construct a wiki about the GRIP course by writing comprehensive online review articles on assigned lectures. To gauge effectiveness, pretest and posttest scores for our course were compared with scores from the previous 7 years from the predecessor course (limited to informatics) given at our institution that did not utilize wikis. Residents constructed 59 peer-reviewed collaborative wiki articles. This group showed a 25% improvement (standard deviation 12%) in test scores, which was greater than the 16% delta recorded in the prior 7 years of our predecessor course (P = 0.006). Our use of wiki technology provided a wiki containing high-quality content that will form the basis of future pathology informatics and genomics courses and proved to be an effective teaching tool, as evidenced by the significant rise in our resident posttest scores. Data from this project provide support for the notion that active participation in content creation is an effective mechanism for mastery of content. Future residents

Use of a wiki as an interactive teaching tool in pathology residency education: Experience with a genomics, research, and informatics in pathology course

PubMed Central

Park, Seung; Parwani, Anil; MacPherson, Trevor; Pantanowitz, Liron

2012-01-01

Background: The need for informatics and genomics training in pathology is critical, yet limited resources for such training are available. In this study we sought to critically test the hypothesis that the incorporation of a wiki (a collaborative writing and publication tool with roots in “Web 2.0”) in a combined informatics and genomics course could both (1) serve as an interactive, collaborative educational resource and reference and (2) actively engage trainees by requiring the creation and sharing of educational materials. Materials and Methods: A 2-week full-time course at our institution covering genomics, research, and pathology informatics (GRIP) was taught by 36 faculty to 18 second- and third-year pathology residents. The course content included didactic lectures and hands-on demonstrations of technology (e.g., whole-slide scanning, telepathology, and statistics software). Attendees were given pre- and posttests. Residents were trained to use wiki technology (MediaWiki) and requested to construct a wiki about the GRIP course by writing comprehensive online review articles on assigned lectures. To gauge effectiveness, pretest and posttest scores for our course were compared with scores from the previous 7 years from the predecessor course (limited to informatics) given at our institution that did not utilize wikis. Results: Residents constructed 59 peer-reviewed collaborative wiki articles. This group showed a 25% improvement (standard deviation 12%) in test scores, which was greater than the 16% delta recorded in the prior 7 years of our predecessor course (P = 0.006). Conclusions: Our use of wiki technology provided a wiki containing high-quality content that will form the basis of future pathology informatics and genomics courses and proved to be an effective teaching tool, as evidenced by the significant rise in our resident posttest scores. Data from this project provide support for the notion that active participation in content creation is an

Cancer Genomics: Integrative and Scalable Solutions in R / Bioconductor | Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)

Cancer.gov

This proposal develops scalable R / Bioconductor software infrastructure and data resources to integrate complex, heterogeneous, and large cancer genomic experiments. The falling cost of genomic assays facilitates collection of multiple data types (e.g., gene and transcript expression, structural variation, copy number, methylation, and microRNA data) from a set of clinical specimens. Furthermore, substantial resources are now available from large consortium activities like The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).

The role of ethics in information technology decisions: a case-based approach to biomedical informatics education.

PubMed

Anderson, James G

2004-03-18

The purpose of this paper is to propose a case-based approach to instruction regarding ethical issues raised by the use of information technology (IT) in healthcare. These issues are rarely addressed in graduate degree and continuing professional education programs in health informatics. There are important reasons why ethical issues need to be addressed in informatics training. Ethical issues raised by the introduction of information technology affect practice and are ubiquitous. These issues are frequently among the most challenging to young practitioners who are ill prepared to deal with them in practice. First, the paper provides an overview of methods of moral reasoning that can be used to identify and analyze ethical problems in health informatics. Second, we provide a framework for defining cases that involve ethical issues and outline major issues raised by the use of information technology. Specific cases are used as examples of new dilemmas that are posed by the introduction of information technology in healthcare. These cases are used to illustrate how ethics can be integrated with the other elements of informatics training. The cases discussed here reflect day-to-day situations that arise in health settings that require decisions. Third, an approach that can be used to teach ethics in health informatics programs is outlined and illustrated.

Goal setting using telemedicine in rural underserved older adults with diabetes: experiences from the informatics for diabetes education and telemedicine project.

PubMed

West, Susan P; Lagua, Carina; Trief, Paula M; Izquierdo, Roberto; Weinstock, Ruth S

2010-05-01

To describe the use of telemedicine for setting goals for behavior change and examine the success in achieving these goals in rural underserved older adults with diabetes. Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes living in rural upstate New York who were enrolled in the telemedicine intervention of the Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel) project (n = 610) participated in home televisits with nurse and dietitian educators every 4-6 weeks for 2-6 years. Behavior change goals related to nutrition, physical activity, monitoring, diabetes health maintenance, and/or use of the home telemedicine unit were established at the conclusion of each televisit and assessed at the next visit. Collaborative goal setting was employed during 18,355 televisits (mean of 33 goal-setting televisits/participant). The most common goals were related to monitoring, followed by diabetes health maintenance, nutrition, exercise, and use of the telemedicine equipment. Overall, 68% of behavioral goals were rated as "improved" or "met." The greatest success was achieved for goals related to proper insulin injection technique and daily foot care. These elderly participants had the most difficulty achieving goals related to use of the computer. No gender differences in goal achievement were observed. Televisits can be successfully used to collaboratively establish behavior change goals to help improve diabetes self-management in underserved elderly rural adults.

Machine learning in materials informatics: recent applications and prospects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramprasad, Rampi; Batra, Rohit; Pilania, Ghanshyam; Mannodi-Kanakkithodi, Arun; Kim, Chiho

2017-12-01

Propelled partly by the Materials Genome Initiative, and partly by the algorithmic developments and the resounding successes of data-driven efforts in other domains, informatics strategies are beginning to take shape within materials science. These approaches lead to surrogate machine learning models that enable rapid predictions based purely on past data rather than by direct experimentation or by computations/simulations in which fundamental equations are explicitly solved. Data-centric informatics methods are becoming useful to determine material properties that are hard to measure or compute using traditional methods—due to the cost, time or effort involved—but for which reliable data either already exists or can be generated for at least a subset of the critical cases. Predictions are typically interpolative, involving fingerprinting a material numerically first, and then following a mapping (established via a learning algorithm) between the fingerprint and the property of interest. Fingerprints, also referred to as "descriptors", may be of many types and scales, as dictated by the application domain and needs. Predictions may also be extrapolative—extending into new materials spaces—provided prediction uncertainties are properly taken into account. This article attempts to provide an overview of some of the recent successful data-driven "materials informatics" strategies undertaken in the last decade, with particular emphasis on the fingerprint or descriptor choices. The review also identifies some challenges the community is facing and those that should be overcome in the near future.

PREFACE: International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics 2008 (IW-SMI 2008)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hayashi, Masahito; Inoue, Jun-ichi; Kabashima, Yoshiyuki; Tanaka, Kazuyuki

2009-01-01

Statistical mechanical informatics (SMI) is an approach that applies physics to information science, in which many-body problems in information processing are tackled using statistical mechanics methods. In the last decade, the use of SMI has resulted in great advances in research into classical information processing, in particular, theories of information and communications, probabilistic inference and combinatorial optimization problems. It is expected that the success of SMI can be extended to quantum systems. The importance of many-body problems is also being recognized in quantum information theory (QIT), for which quantification of entanglement of bipartite systems has recently been almost completely established after considerable effort. SMI and QIT are sufficiently well developed that it is now appropriate to consider applying SMI to quantum systems and developing many-body theory in QIT. This combination of SMI and QIT is highly likely to contribute significantly to the development of both research fields. The International Workshop on Statistical-Mechanical Informatics has been organized in response to this situation. This workshop, held at Sendai International Conference Center, Sendai, Japan, 14-17 September 2008, and sponsored by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas `Deepening and Expansion of Statistical Mechanical Informatics (DEX-SMI)' (Head investigator: Yoshiyuki Kabashima, Tokyo Institute of Technology) (Project http://dex-smi.sp.dis.titech.ac.jp/DEX-SMI), was intended to provide leading researchers with strong interdisciplinary interests in QIT and SMI with the opportunity to engage in intensive discussions. The aim of the workshop was to expand SMI to quantum systems and QIT research on quantum (entangled) many-body systems, to discuss possible future directions, and to offer researchers the opportunity to exchange ideas that may lead to joint research initiatives. We would like to thank the contributors of the workshop

MO-C-BRCD-03: The Role of Informatics in Medical Physics and Vice Versa.

PubMed

Andriole, K

2012-06-01

Like Medical Physics, Imaging Informatics encompasses concepts touching every aspect of the imaging chain from image creation, acquisition, management and archival, to image processing, analysis, display and interpretation. The two disciplines are in fact quite complementary, with similar goals to improve the quality of care provided to patients using an evidence-based approach, to assure safety in the clinical and research environments, to facilitate efficiency in the workplace, and to accelerate knowledge discovery. Use-cases describing several areas of informatics activity will be given to illustrate current limitations that would benefit from medical physicist participation, and conversely areas in which informaticists may contribute to the solution. Topics to be discussed include radiation dose monitoring, process management and quality control, display technologies, business analytics techniques, and quantitative imaging. Quantitative imaging is increasingly becoming an essential part of biomedicalresearch as well as being incorporated into clinical diagnostic activities. Referring clinicians are asking for more objective information to be gleaned from the imaging tests that they order so that they may make the best clinical management decisions for their patients. Medical Physicists may be called upon to identify existing issues as well as develop, validate and implement new approaches and technologies to help move the field further toward quantitative imaging methods for the future. Biomedical imaging informatics tools and techniques such as standards, integration, data mining, cloud computing and new systems architectures, ontologies and lexicons, data visualization and navigation tools, and business analytics applications can be used to overcome some of the existing limitations. 1. Describe what is meant by Medical Imaging Informatics and understand why the medical physicist should care. 2. Identify existing limitations in information technologies with

The Application of Informatics in Delineating the Proof of Concept for Creating Knowledge of the Value Added by Interprofessional Practice and Education

PubMed Central

Cerra, Frank; Pacala, James; Brandt, Barbara F.; Lutfiyya, May Nawal

2015-01-01

The resurgence of interest in the promise of interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP) to positively impact health outcomes, requires the collection of appropriate data that can be analyzed and from which information and knowledge linking IPECP interventions to improved health outcomes might be produced and reported to stakeholders such as health systems, policy makers and regulators, payers, and accreditation agencies. To generate such knowledge the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education at the University of Minnesota has developed three strategies, the first two of which are: (1) creating an IPECP research agenda, and (2) a national Nexus Innovation Network (NIN) of intervention projects that are generating data that are being input and housed in a National Center Data Repository (NCDR). In this paper, the informatics platform supporting the work of these first two strategies is presented as the third interconnected strategy for knowledge generation. The proof of concept for the informatics strategy is developed in this paper by describing: data input from the NIN into the NCDR, the linking and merging of those data to produce analyzable data files that incorporate institutional and individual level data, and the production of meaningful analyses to create and provide relevant information and knowledge. This paper is organized around the concepts of data, information and knowledge—the three conceptual foundations of informatics. PMID:27417818

Audacious goals for health and biomedical informatics in the new millennium.

PubMed

Greenes, R A; Lorenzi, N M

1998-01-01

The 1998 Scientific Symposium of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) was devoted to developing visions for the future of health care and biomedicine and a strategic agenda for health and biomedical informatics in support of those visions. This symposium focus was prompted by the many major changes currently underway in health care delivery, education, and research, as well as in our health and biomedical enterprises, and by the constantly increasing role of information technology in both shaping and enabling these changes. The three audacious goals developed for 2008 are a virtual health care databank, a national health care knowledge base, and a personal clinical health record.

Contemporary cybernetics and its facets of cognitive informatics and computational intelligence.

PubMed

Wang, Yingxu; Kinsner, Witold; Zhang, Du

2009-08-01

This paper explores the architecture, theoretical foundations, and paradigms of contemporary cybernetics from perspectives of cognitive informatics (CI) and computational intelligence. The modern domain and the hierarchical behavioral model of cybernetics are elaborated at the imperative, autonomic, and cognitive layers. The CI facet of cybernetics is presented, which explains how the brain may be mimicked in cybernetics via CI and neural informatics. The computational intelligence facet is described with a generic intelligence model of cybernetics. The compatibility between natural and cybernetic intelligence is analyzed. A coherent framework of contemporary cybernetics is presented toward the development of transdisciplinary theories and applications in cybernetics, CI, and computational intelligence.