GMDS 2012 – Medical Informatics, Medicine and Neighboring Disciplines

Abstract

Correspondence to: Prof. Dr. med. Jurgen Stausberg Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen Institut fur Medizinische Informationsverarbeitung, Biometrie und Epidemiologie (IBE) Marchioninistrase 15 81377 Munchen Germany E-mail: juergen.stausberg@ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de In his recent editorial regarding a selection of papers from Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) 2011, Gyorgy Surjan discussed their “thematic diversity” with respect to the “problem of the self definition of medical informatics” [1]. The same can be said about the annual conference of the German scientific association of medical informatics. The German association covers medical informatics and its neighboring disciplines of biometry (statistics in human and veterinary medicine) and epidemiology. It was founded in 1955 as the German Association for Medical Documentation and Statistics (GMDS). In 1991, it received its current, rather long name, the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, while preserving the acronym GMDS. In the years since then, despite the continuing links between the three fields encompassed by the GMDS, the ties have loosened. Thus, the biometrical branch is closely affiliated with the German Region of the International Biometric Society (IBS-DR). In 2005, epidemiologists established a national scientific association dedicated solely to their field, the German Association of Epidemiology (DGEpi). These groups have paved the way for an umbrella organization in Germany whose aim is to bind otherwise independent associations focusing on medical informatics, biometry, and epidemiology, accepting their differences while preserving their similarities. In the move to create this structure, only the medical informatics section is missing. In his editorial [1], Gyorgy Surjan considered the larger issue as “the problem of finding the relevant information in a large amount of data”. To some extent this is the case for the five papers selected from the 57th Annual Conference of the GMDS for publication in Methods of Information in Medicine. The conference, which took place in September 2012 in Braunschweig, Germany, was hosted by the Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics and organized jointly with the 42nd Annual Conference of the National Infor matics Association (GI). Informatics, med ical informatics, biometry, and epidemi ology: these four distinct scientific fields provide methods for in formation analysis and in formation management in medicine. There couldn’t be a better place than a journal devoted to those methods as Methods of Information in Medicine, to pre sent the results of research in these scientific fields. However, at this conference medical informatics is traditionally the predominant specialty in terms of participants and papers. The selection of papers from the 57th Annual Conference of the GMDS was supported by many people. The conference reviewers were asked to recommend submissions for this focus theme. After the conference, the program chairs for medical informatics, biometry, epidemiology, and medical documentation further tailored the candidates to a set of abstracts that were invited to submit a full paper. Those papers were regularly evaluated by reviewers from Methods of Information in Focus Theme – Editorial