Not All Informatics are Created Equal

Author: Mehdi Rais, M.D.

The term Biomedical Informatics is so widely and loosely used that it is easy to forget that there are levels of specialization within the discipline. A simple job search in the field of Informatics will only amplify the confusion as often the terminologies within separate sub-specialties overlap.  

One of the first white papers written on the Informatics discipline and specialization subtypes was offered by the American College of Medical Informatics and published in 2004 in JAMA. In the article, the field of Biomedical Informatics had been organized around the applications of Informatics into four specific areas of specialization:

1. Clinical Informatics: utilizes biomedical informatics to address the patient care domain.
2. Bioinformatics: studies how data is represented and transmitted within a given biological system and often begins at its most molecular level.
3. Imaging Informatics: concerns all processes of image use and include the techniques to acquire and/or convert images into digital form, analyze and manipulate this data, and use the images in a variety of ways in their digital form.
4. Public Health Informatics: utilizes data of biomedical informatics and applying these processes to address problems that may arise in the public health domain.

The field of Clinical Informatics is further broken down into sub-specialties that include: Health Informatics, Medical Informatics, Nursing Informatics, Dentistry Informatics and Pharmacy Informatics.  Additionally if there is a focus on healthy individuals as the user, this is defined as Consumer Health Informatics.

As you can see, there are several specific degrees of specialization under the umbrella of Informatics.  Which area do you fall under?

About the author:

Mehdi Rais is a physician, medical lecturer, medical writer, and self-proclaimed “tech nerd.” When Dr. Rais isn’t honing in on his trades, he spends his time scouring publications and the web for the latest trends in technology in the medical field, new applications in Health Information Technology, and emerging legislative & regulatory changes in medicine. 

Dr. Rais' interests are greatly focused in the realm of mobile computing and the use of cell phone technologies in the clinical setting.  He received his Medical Doctorate from St. Christopher’s College of Medicine after spending his undergraduate years at the University of Texas at Dallas.  

Dr. Rais can be reached on LinkedIn or followed at his blog. Look for him on Twitter @DrMedBlog.