Envisioned Future for US Health System

The United States will have a state-of-the-art health system that provides safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable health care services. The health system will be structured (through financial incentives, an information infrastructure, and a skilled workforce) to take full advantage of available knowledge to improve the health of individuals and the population. The health system will support innovation and the generation, dissemination, and application of new knowledge. The health system will encourage and support citizens and patients who actively manage their health.

Envisioned Future for the American Medical Informatics Association

The American Medical Informatics Association will play a pivotal role in the transformation of the US health system and will make measurable contributions to the improvement of health of the nation through continued development and implementation of health information technology. AMIA will be an integrating force that strengthens the nation's ability to create and manage the science and knowledge base of health care. AMIA will be an active participant in the development of global health information policy and technology with particular emphasis on using health information technology to meet the health needs of underserved populations around the world.

AMIA Mission

AMIA advances the informatics professions relating to health and disease. To this end it advances the use of health information and communications technology in clinical care and clinical research, personal health management, public health/population, and translational science with the ultimate objective of improving health.

AMIA Domains

There is no universally accepted taxonomy for the major domains of informatics today. For purposes of AMIA's education, member service, research programs and policy initiatives, we recognize three domains. These domains include:

1. Clinical informatics (including healthcare, research and personal health management)
2. Public health/population informatics
3. Translational bioinformatics

The domains are not exclusive to one another. They overlap in various ways and, most importantly, informatics done properly is intrinsically multidisciplinary in nature, flexible and integrative. Having said this, there is sufficient good to be gained from acknowledging this taxonomy that the AMIA Board of Directors has adopted this approach. A few comments relevant to each domain can offer clarification and support coherence in the field.

Clinical Informatics

Clinical informatics contains two major divisions. The first relates to all those aspects of clinical informatics whose objective is the application of informatics and information technology to deliver healthcare services. At times, this has also been referred to as applied clinical informatics. Despite some variations, AMIA considers informatics when used for healthcare delivery to be essentially the same regardless of the health professional group involved whether dentist, pharmacist, physician, nurse, or other health professional.

The other branch relates to clinical research informatics. Its primary objective is the use of informatics in the discovery and management of new knowledge relating to health and disease. This includes the management of the relevant knowledge base. Clinical research informatics could be thought to encompass translational bioinformatics. However, for the present at least, AMIA has chosen to consider it a separate division since the communities of practitioners tend to be separate and since the field is still in its infancy.

Clinical Healthcare Informatics
Within the domain of clinical healthcare informatics, AMIA seeks to transform healthcare and enhance human health through a creative and innovative use of informatics with respect to applications of communications and information technology. This will be accomplished through a well educated and properly trained informatics workforce, an enhanced performance of health care processes and systems, relevant public policy, and a relevant research agenda. AMIA seeks to move 'upstream' by fostering the development of direct approaches to patients and their families and even to individuals who are not yet patients but may seek support to preserve and/or improve their health status.

AMIA is concerned that informatics and information technology address the needs of people in all cultural and socioeconomic groups globally. Further, reflecting on our professional code, we seek to live out our values and attitudes that may reflected in decision support systems or through direct interaction. In sum, clinical healthcare informatics seeks to anticipate and lead applications appropriate and useful to the care of individuals and their health status and important relationships.

Clinical Research Informatics
Clinical research informatics relates to informatics whose objective is to advance the biomedical/health sciences through the humane and ethical use of informatics. Included are issues relating to the use of information and knowledge as well as the sound and socially-appropriate collection and maintenance of person-specific and/or anonymized patient data.

Public Health/Population Informatics

Public health informatics, and its corollary, population informatics, is concerned with informatics focused on groups rather than individuals. This parallels the field of public health. Public health is potentially extremely broad and might even reflect an interest in information technology with regard to ecology, architecture, climate, agriculture, and such. AMIA will focus on those aspects of public health that are considered to be in the purview of the Centers for Disease Control including security with respect to biosurveillance and bioterrorism. At this time it does not concern itself with informatics relating to the broadest reaches of public health.

Translational Bioinformatics

AMIA refers to translational bioinformatics as the development of storage, analytic, and interpretive methods to optimize the transformation of increasingly voluminous biomedical data, and genomic data in particular, into proactive, predictive, preventive, and participatory health. Translational bioinformatics includes research on the development of novel techniques for the integration of biological and clinical data and the evolution of clinical informatics methodology to encompass biological observations. The end product of translational bioinformatics is newly found knowledge from these integrative efforts that can be disseminated to a variety of stakeholders, including biomedical scientists, clinicians, and patients. Issues relating to database management, administration, or policy will be coordinated through the Clinical Research Informatics domain.

AMIA Goals

Goal 1: AMIA and its members will advance the development and implementation of health information and communications technology and practices, including a health communications and information infrastructure capable of supporting care of individual patients, clinical research, translational bioinformatics, public health/population health and personal health management.

Goal 2: AMIA will offer leadership and collaboration in clinical healthcare and research informatics, public health/population informatics and translational bioinformatics, including advocacy for research support.

Goal 3: AMIA will expand the size of and strengthen the competency of the health informatics workforce in the US and support the continued development of the health informatics profession.

Goal 4: AMIA will contribute to the development of sound state, federal, and global policy on health information technology issues.

Goal 5: AMIA will provide thought leadership and be a catalyst and incubator for new ideas that can be developed by the informatics community.