American College Of Medical Informatics Research Articles

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the nation's public health information systems infrastructure: synthesis of discussions from the 2022 ACMI Symposium.

The annual American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) symposium focused discussion on the national public health information systems (PHIS) infrastructure to support public health goals. The objective of this article is to present the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities (SWOT) identified by public health and informatics leaders in attendance. The Symposium provided a venue for experts in biomedical informatics and public health to brainstorm, identify, and discuss top PHIS challenges. Two conceptual frameworks, SWOT and the Informatics Stack, guided discussion and were used to organize factors and themes identified through a qualitative approach. A total of 57 unique factors related to the current PHIS were identified, including 9 strengths, 22 weaknesses, 14 opportunities, and 14 threats, which were consolidated into 22 themes according to the Stack. Most themes (68%) clustered at the top of the Stack. Three overarching opportunities were especially prominent: (1) addressing the needs for sustainable funding, (2) leveraging existing infrastructure and processes for information exchange and system development that meets public health goals, and (3) preparing the public health workforce to benefit from available resources. The PHIS is unarguably overdue for a strategically designed, technology-enabled, information infrastructure for delivering day-to-day essential public health services and to respond effectively to public health emergencies. Most of the themes identified concerned context, people, and processes rather than technical elements. We recommend that public health leadership consider the possible actions and leverage informatics expertise as we collectively prepare for the future.

Enhancing the nation's public health information infrastructure: a report from the ACMI symposium.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed multiple weaknesses in the nation's public health system. Therefore, the American College of Medical Informatics selected "Rebuilding the Nation's Public Health Informatics Infrastructure" as the theme for its annual symposium. Experts in biomedical informatics and public health discussed strategies to strengthen the US public health information infrastructure through policy, education, research, and development. This article summarizes policy recommendations for the biomedical informatics community postpandemic. First, the nation must perceive the health data infrastructure to be a matter of national security. The nation must further invest significantly more in its health data infrastructure. Investments should include the education and training of the public health workforce as informaticians in this domain are currently limited. Finally, investments should strengthen and expand health data utilities that increasingly play a critical role in exchanging information across public health and healthcare organizations.

Measurement and automation of workflows for improved clinician interaction: upgrading EHRs for 21st century healthcare value.

In this editorial, we highlight 5 manuscripts that address aspects of clinician interaction with the electronic health record (EHR). A Perspective describes the efforts of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in establishing priorities for workflow automation in healthcare settings.1 A second Perspective summarizes a panel sponsored by the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) at the 2021 AMIA Symposium that examined a provocative question: Are EHRs dumbing down clinicians?2 Three manuscripts focus on what can be learned from EHR audit log data.3–5 First, Zayas-Cabán et al1 describe how the ONC led a multidisciplinary effort of stakeholders from industrial engineering, computer science, and finance to investigate automation in health care. They define automation as “the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the delivery of products and services.”6 The process of key informant interviews, focus groups, and a review of pertinent literature identified 6 priorities and their related strategies for advancing workflow automation. These priorities focused on leveraging high quality, interoperable data, and engaging clinicians in the EHR design, implementation, and evaluation processes. Then, relevant, and effective workflows could be identified that add value, not a burden, in clinician processes. The supporting strategies revolved around education, convening multiple interested parties, prioritizing appropriate workflows, and using policies and the market to incentivize automated solutions' development, testing, and evaluation. Examples of priority workflows for automation include reimbursement and prior authorizations, medication reconciliation, care management for newly diagnosed patients, and public health and adverse event reporting. The goal is to upgrade EHR technology to increase efficiency, improve health outcomes, and deliver more value for patients, caregivers, clinicians, and staff involved in healthcare. These priorities and strategies provide some solutions to the inadequacies of EHRs as outlined by Melton et al.2

Donald A.B. Lindberg, pioneer in biomedical and health informatics: His involvement in creating professional organizations.

Among the many contributions of Donald A.B. Lindberg was his work on behalf of a variety or professional organizations in the field of biomedical and health informatics. These began during his early days at the University of Missouri and continued throughout his 30 years at the National Library of Medicine. This chapter summarizes that work, which occurred both through his personal efforts and through the impact of the NLM under his leadership. Examples include his role in the development of organizations themselves (e.g., the International Medical Informatics Association, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the American Medical Informatics Association) and also his contributions to the professional scientific meetings that have advanced the field (e.g., the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care, MEDINFO, and the AMIA Annual Symposium).

Donald A.B. Lindberg, Pioneer in Biomedical and Health Informatics: His Involvement in Creating Professional Organizations.

Among the many contributions of Donald A.B. Lindberg was his work on behalf of a variety or professional organizations in the field of biomedical and health informatics. These began during his early days at the University of Missouri and continued throughout his 30 years at the National Library of Medicine. This chapter summarizes that work, which occurred both through his personal efforts and through the impact of the NLM under his leadership. Examples include his role in the development of organizations themselves (e.g., the International Medical Informatics Association, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the American Medical Informatics Association) and also his contributions to the professional scientific meetings that have advanced the field (e.g., the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care, MEDINFO, and the AMIA Annual Symposium).

A retrospective look at the predictions and recommendations from the 2009 AMIA policy meeting: did we see EHR-related clinician burnout coming?

Clinicians often attribute much of their burnout experience to use of the electronic health record, the adoption of which was greatly accelerated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009. That same year, AMIA’s Policy Meeting focused on possible unintended consequences associated with rapid implementation of electronic health records, generating 17 potential consequences and 15 recommendations to address them. At the 2020 annual meeting of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), ACMI fellows participated in a modified Delphi process to assess the accuracy of the 2009 predictions and the response to the recommendations. Among the findings, the fellows concluded that the degree of clinician burnout and its contributing factors, such as increased documentation requirements, were significantly underestimated. Conversely, problems related to identify theft and fraud were overestimated. Only 3 of the 15 recommendations were adjudged more than half-addressed.

The 2019 Fellow Cohort of the American College of Medical Informatics.

Journal Article The 2019 Fellow Cohort of the American College of Medical Informatics Get access Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Volume 27, Issue 4, April 2020, Pages 662–664, https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocz227 Published: 05 March 2020

The 2018 fellow cohort of the American College of Medical Informatics

The 2018 fellow cohort of the American College of Medical Informatics

Health IT vendors and the academic community: The 2014 ACMI debate

The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) periodically hosts a debate at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) fall symposium on a timely topic in biomedical informatics. In 2014 a panel of ACMI fellows debated the following proposition: “The lack of interaction and collaboration between health IT vendors and academic clinical informatics units is stifling innovation and will continue to have a detrimental effect on the evolution of commercial products.” Debaters disagreed on the level of interaction and collaboration between the health IT sector and academia and disagreed on whether and by whom innovation was actually taking place. While collaboration between industry and academia was seen as desirable by all of the debaters, there was an acknowledgment that these groups have notably different roles and responsibilities. There was consensus that a path forward should be found, and that AMIA itself has an important role to play in effecting this.

Celebrating Morris F. Collen (1913-2014)

Celebrating Morris F. Collen (1913-2014)

François Grémy, a Humanist and Information Sciences Pioneer

François Grémy, a Humanist and Information Sciences Pioneer

Consumer-mediated health information exchanges: The 2012 ACMI debate

The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) sponsors periodic debates during the American Medical Informatics Fall Symposium to highlight important informatics issues of broad interest. In 2012, a panel debated the following topic: “Resolved: Health Information Exchange Organizations Should Shift Their Principal Focus to Consumer-Mediated Exchange in Order to Facilitate the Rapid Development of Effective, Scalable, and Sustainable Health Information Infrastructure.” Those supporting the proposition emphasized the need for consumer-controlled community repositories of electronic health records (health record banks) to address privacy, stakeholder cooperation, scalability, and sustainability. Those opposing the proposition emphasized that the current healthcare environment is so complex that development of consumer control will take time and that even then, consumers may not be able to mediate their information effectively. While privately each discussant recognizes that there are many sides to this complex issue, each followed the debater’s tradition of taking an extreme position in order emphasize some of the polarizing aspects in the short time allotted them. In preparing this summary, we sought to convey the substance and spirit of the debate in printed form. Transcripts of the actual debate were edited for clarity, and appropriate supporting citations were added for the further edification of the reader.

Healthcare information technology and economics

At the 2011 American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) Winter Symposium we studied the overlap between health IT and economics and what leading healthcare delivery organizations are achieving today using IT that might offer paths for the nation to follow for using health IT in healthcare reform. We recognized that health IT by itself can improve health value, but its main contribution to health value may be that it can make possible new care delivery models to achieve much larger value. Health IT is a critically important enabler to fundamental healthcare system changes that may be a way out of our current, severe problem of rising costs and national deficit. We review the current state of healthcare costs, federal health IT stimulus programs, and experiences of several leading organizations, and offer a model for how health IT fits into our health economic future.

American College of Medical Informatics Fellows, 2010 and 2011

In 2010 and 2011, 28 new fellows were elected to the American College of Medical Informatics, and were inducted into the college at ceremonies held in conjunction with the American Medical Informatics Association annual conferences in Washington, DC, in those years. A brief synopsis of the background and accomplishments of each of the new fellows is provided here, in alphabetical order. Dr Ammenwerth received her undergraduate education in medicine from the University of Essen in Germany, and a doctorate in medical informatics from the University of Heidelberg's Institute for Medical Biometry and Informatics. She also received a degree in habilitation in medical informatics from the University of Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Tirol, Austria. She rose through the academic ranks and at the time of election to the college was professor of health informatics at the University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Tirol. Professor Ammenwerth has made sustained contributions in the field of technology evaluation, and her methods have been adopted widely, in Europe, the USA and around the world. At the time of election she had more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and a sustained record of funded research in electronic health records (EHR) design, innovations to improve patient safety, evaluation of the impact of clinical information systems, and the use of inpatient, home and mobile monitoring. She has been a member of scientific program committees for a wide range of international health informatics conferences, and served as managing editor of the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics. Her work on technology evaluation, particularly that based on the theory of interaction of task, technology and individuals, has been widely cited. Her election as an international fellow of the college recognizes these contributions that have had an international scope of influence. Dr Bernstam received bachelors degrees in … Correspondence to Jeffrey J Williamson, American Medical Informatics Association, 4720 Montgomery Lane, Suite 500, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA; jeff{at}amia.org

Back to the Future: What Have We Failed to Learn? How Does the Future Look?

Marion Ball is Past President of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), presently Senior Advisor to the Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute, IBM Research, Professor Emerita, Johns Hopkins University, Member, Institute of Medicine-National Academy of Sciences, USA, Member of the Board Of Regents of the National Library of Medicine, Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), Past Board member and Fellow of the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS), American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Medical Library Association (MLA) and the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME), American Academy of Nursing (FAAN).

American College of Medical Informatics In Memoriam, 2009–2010

In this special section, initiated by Past President Joyce Mitchell in the expectation that it will become an ACMI tradition, we memorialize the lives of the fellows who died during her presidency. There were seven. Six were born a generation before the term informatics was coined and more than 50 years before the founding of AMIA. Six lived through World War II, four through the Great Depression. Two of the deceased— Helmuth Orthner and William Yamamoto —were founding fellows of ACMI in 1984, while three— Allan Pryor , Harold Schoolman , and William Schwartz —were elected the following year. Joachim Dudeck and Mario Stefanelli became fellows in 2001. Most of us are aware of the accomplishments of these men (for details, visit the ACMI wiki), but few are familiar with the lives they lived. Here, aided by the reminiscences of families, friends, and colleagues, we celebrate those lives. (An article about Marco Ramoni , who was elected to ACMI posthumously, appears on page 369 of this issue.) Joachim Dudeck, a physician, recognized the medical potential of informatics early in his career and greatly enjoyed the intellectual camaraderie of others of like mind. In fact, he reveled in it. Joachim treasured his colleagues. He loved visiting them, hosting them, opera-going with them, dining with them, wining with them, discoursing with them, and seeing to their comfort. Joachim was a devotee of fine living and a consummately social being. ![Graphic][1] “When I visited for his 65th birthday conference, I was constantly accompanied by someone from his staff to make sure I got from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to the airport, and everywhere in between. I was a guest at his home for dinner, as well. And he didn't know me from Adam,” recalls Jim Cimino of the National Institutes … [1]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif

AMIA president's message

Although informatics is often viewed externally as a new discipline, the field has a rich history that dates back at least to the 1960s, with a well-known seminal paper appearing even earlier.1 AMIA itself was created in the late 1980s when three separate informatics organizations, with overlapping interests, saw the value in combining their missions and activities in a single, larger, and more cohesive organization. Those three nonprofit corporate entities ( SCAMC : the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care; AAMSI : the American Association for Medical Systems and Informatics; and ACMI : the American College of Medical Informatics) dissolved their own charters and pooled resources to form a new organization that would incorporate the activities of all three. SCAMC became the AMIA Annual Symposium, which we hold every fall, AAMSI became the membership organization, and ACMI was re-created within AMIA as its College of elected Fellows. All three activities continue to thrive to this day, as does our annual spring meeting, which owes its roots to the annual AAMSI meeting, which was held at that time of year. The world of informatics has changed dramatically since AMIA was formed, and the association has accordingly evolved as well. That evolution requires introspection and decisions—ones that need to reflect our roots and to reaffirm the critical importance of disciplines such as computer science that gave rise to informatics, as well as to embrace change when appropriate. AMIA's roots are firmly planted in academia, corporate research, hospitals, and other clinical practice settings—plus the government agencies (notably the NLM …

Presentation of the 2009 Morris F Collen Award to Betsy L Humphreys, with remarks from the recipient

The American College of Medical Informatics is an honorary society established to recognize those who have made sustained contributions to the field. Its highest award, for lifetime achievement and contributions to the discipline of medical informatics, is the Morris F Collen Award. Dr Collen's own efforts as a pioneer in the field stand out as the embodiment of creativity, intellectual rigor, perseverance, and personal integrity. The Collen Award, given once a year, honors an individual whose attainments have, throughout a whole career, substantially advanced the science and art of biomedical informatics. In 2009, the college was proud to present the Collen Award to Betsy Humphreys, MLS, deputy director of the National Library of Medicine. Ms Humphreys has dedicated her career to enabling more effective integration and exchange of electronic information. Her work has involved new knowledge sources and innovative strategies for advancing health data standards to accomplish these goals. Ms Humphreys becomes the first librarian to receive the Collen Award. Dr Collen, on the occasion of his 96th birthday, personally presented the award to Ms Humphreys.

American College of Medical Informatics Fellows, 2009

In 2009, 11 new fellows were elected to the American College of Medical Informatics, and were inducted into the College at a ceremony held in conjunction with the American Medical Informatics Association conference in San Francisco on November 15, 2009. A brief synopsis of the background and accomplishments of each of the new fellows is provided here, in alphabetical order. Riccardo Bellazzi, PhD ![Formula][1] Dr Bellazzi graduated laurea cum laude with a degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Pavia in Italy, with a concentration in planning and temporal reasoning in medical expert systems. He earned his PhD in Bioengineering at the Milan Politecnico and the University of Pavia, with emphasis on causal models and machine learning applied to clinical monitoring. Dr Bellazzi is currently Associate Professor of Medical Informatics in the Department of Computer Science and Systems (Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica), Universita di Pavia, Pavia, Italy. At the time of his election to the College, Professor Bellazzi was a lecturer in Medical Informatics, Machine Learning, Probabilistic Modeling and Bioinformatics applied to genomics and proteomics. He organized the National School of Bioengineering in 2007 with an educational program focused on Computational Genomics and Proteomics. Dr Bellazzi's research interests range across clinical and molecular domains, including data mining, web-based telemedicine for the management of chronic disease, mathematical modeling of biological systems, and the development of novel bioinformatics methods, particularly in the temporal analysis of gene expression patterns, proteomics and analysis of tissue microarray data. He has authored more than 200 publications, and has been an active contributor to both AMIA and IMIA conferences. He was an AMIA Student Paper award winner for work associated with his PhD thesis in 1992. Dr Riccardo Bellazzi is one of the renaissance figures of our field, whose work is having international impact in the … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Using Frames to Influence Consumer Willingness to Pay for the Patient Health Record: A Randomized Experiment

The American College of Medical Informatics rated the lack of willingness to pay for the patient health record (PHR) as the biggest obstacles to its rapid diffusion. Extending research propositions from the decision sciences and political communication, this study tests the influence of different types of emphasis frames on increasing consumer willingness to pay for the PHR. Using a randomized experiment embedded within a probability survey, the effects of 3 different types of emphasis frames (individual-focused, collective-focused, and joint), along with a no-frames control, are tested on a sample of early and later technology adopters. The results indicate a significant relationship between the type of frame and the type of adopter. Early adopters were more susceptible to individual-focused frames that made causal attributions at the individual level, whereas later adopters were significantly influenced by collective-focused frames that made causal attributions at the societal level. Interestingly, the framing effect continued and significantly influenced both early and later adopters' willingness to pay for the PHR. The findings demonstrate the need to carefully communicate the value of a technology to adopters and suggest the possibility of using frames to spur the diffusion of PHRs.