Newswise — As the Informatics field expands to include new professionals emerging from federally supported education programs at universities and community colleges, AMIA, the association of informatics professionals, is also experiencing significant growth, evidenced by the re-launch of its website and a relocation to larger offices for its staff of 22.
“AMIA’s informative new portal illuminates the role of informatics as a unique scientific discipline that contributes to the advancement of life science research, healthcare delivery, and better health overall for patients,” said Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD, FACMI, AMIA president and CEO. “Informatics is fundamental to discovery and knowledge aggregation in several domains of biomedicine and health. AMIA focuses on five of those areas, which are outlined on the new website.” The science of informatics uses data, information, and knowledge to improve human health and the delivery of healthcare services. Predominantly a paper-based business environment, the U.S. healthcare system distinctively lags behind other business sectors of the national economy in becoming fully electronic. Members of AMIA, however, work to counter the tendency of many healthcare providers to cling to non-digitized health information, which has been shown to lead frequently to unnecessary and costly healthcare delivery.
“AMIA’s new website can help raise awareness among consumers about additional benefits that patients garner from healthcare providers who apply informatics to their clinical workflow,” said Gilad Kuperman, MD, PhD, FACMI, Director of Interoperability Informatics at New York-Presbyterian Hospital; Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University; and Chair-elect of the AMIA Board of Directors.
A projected shortfall of physicians in the near future is yet another factor to consider in streamlining healthcare delivery and making it responsive to patient needs.
Informatics supports clinical decision-making, clinical research, clinical workflow, and many more critical aspects of healthcare delivery, including nursing informatics. It is also an intrinsic component of modern biomedical research, supporting data acquisition, management, and analysis in research laboratories.
“AMIA.org serves as a collaborative center for numerous individuals and organizations working in informatics,” notes Nancy M. Lorenzi, PhD, FACMI, Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Clinical Professor of Nursing at Vanderbilt’s School of Nursing, and Chair of the AMIA Board of Directors. “A robust community of informatics professionals meets online to solve problems, exchange best practices, and share information.”
AMIA.org supports a number of AMIA Working Groups whose members are active online. There is also a Career Center for job seekers and recruiters, presentation of an array of educational training programs for professionals who want to work in the field, and a vast clearinghouse of information about informatics-related policy positions, networking events, scientific meetings, articles, and news developments. There is also a link to AMIA’s scientific research journal, JAMIA, which has its own home online at JAMIA.org.
To support its growing membership of 4,000 individuals and institutions, AMIA staff members have relocated to new offices at 4720 Montgomery Lane, Suite 500, Bethesda, Maryland, on the edge of Washington, DC. The staff supports AMIA members in education, meetings, policy, governance, and outreach to a broad swath of scientists in discovery-driven science in biomedicine and health.
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