President's column: operational informatics—expanding the scope of our discipline

Abstract

The purpose of the Messages from AMIA section is to provide a forum for AMIA to inform and involve its current and potential members about the goals and the directions of the association. These messages, which reflect the directions and opinions of AMIA leaders only, are intended to inspire members and readers to connect with the association on strategic objectives and activities. See also http://www.amia.org/presidents-page. In 2012, the AMIA Board of Directors issued a white paper which defined biomedical informatics1 and noted that ‘…identifying new competency areas on an ongoing basis is especially important for a field that is rapidly changing in both its informatics and its biomedical and health aspects.’ With the advent of the new medical board certification in Clinical Informatics and our efforts to develop the Advanced Interprofessional Informatics Certification (AIIC) process for non-physicians, further refinement of our focus as a discipline seems warranted. The more global, all-inclusive definition is that biomedical informatics is ‘…the interdisciplinary field that studies and pursues the effective uses of biomedical data, information, and knowledge for scientific inquiry, problem solving, and decision making, driven by efforts to improve human health.’1 There are a number of more refined areas of focus under the umbrella of biomedical informatics: (1) health informatics, which includes clinical, medical, nursing, dental, and public health or population informatics; (2) translational bioinformatics and clinical research informatics; and (3) structural (imaging) informatics. Charles Friedman, PhD in a recent article in the journal stated that informatics represents a field that is ‘cross-trained with knowledge in the basic sciences and within a particular practice domain.’2 He noted that the knowledge held by professionals in the field is derived from—but not limited to—‘information science, computer science, cognitive …