Methods in Year 50: Preserving the Past and Preparing for the Future

Summary

Background: Founded in 1962 and, therefore, the oldest international journal in medical informatics, Methods of Information in Medicine will publish its 50th volume in 2011. At the start of the journal’s sixth decade, a discussion on the journal’s profile seems appropriate.

Objectives: To report on the new opportunities for online access to Methods publications as well as on the recent strategic decisions regarding the journal‘s aims and editorial policies.

Methods: Describing and analyzing the journal’s aims and scope. Reflecting on recent publications and on the journal’s development during the last decade.

Results: From 2011 forward all articles of Methods from 1962 until the present can be accessed online. Methods of Information in Medicine stresses the basic methodology and scientific fundamentals of processing data, information and knowledge in medicine and health care. Although the journal‘s major focus is on publications in medical informatics, it has never been restricted to publications only in this discipline. For example, articles in medical biometry, in or close to biomedical engineering, and, later, articles in bioinformatics continue to be a part of this journal.

Conclusions: There is a continuous and, as it seems, ever growing overlap in the research methodology and application areas of the mentioned disciplines. As there is a continuing and even growing need for such a publication forum, Methods of Information in Medicine will keep its broad scope. As an organizational consequence, the journal’s number of associate editors has increased accordingly.

Keywords

Medical informatics - health informatics - biomedical informatics - bioinformatics - biomedical engineering - medical biometry - publishing

• References

• 1 http://www.methods-online.com Last access December 2, 2010
• 2 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/index.html Last access December 2, 2010
• 3 Oberhoffer G. Report on an international seminar for medical documentation and statistics. Methods Inf Med 1962; 1: 27-31.
• 4 van Bemmel JH. Medical data, information, and knowledge. Methods Inf Med 1988; 27: 109-110.
• 5 Haux R, McCray AT. Processing medical data, information and knowledge: new opportunities in the information society. Methods Inf Med 2001; 40: 272-274.
• 6 McCray AT, Haux R. Supporting open access to scientific information. Methods Inf Med 2002; 41: 243-244.
• 7 Publisher’s note.. Copyright authorization. Methods Inf Med 2002; 41 (01) V.
• 8 Publisher’s note.. Methods-Online: a free instant access to subscribers. Methods Inf Med 2002; 41 (01) V-VI.
• 9 http://www.imia.org Last access December 2, 2010
• 10 Lun KC. Methods designated “Official Journal of IMIA”. Methods Inf Med 2003; 42 (03) IV-V.
• 11 Haux R, McCray AT. From Five to Six at 45. Methods will increase its number of issues in its 45th Year of Existence. Methods Inf Med 2005; 44: 601-602.
• 12 Miller RA, Groth T, Hasman A, Haux R, McCray AT, Safran C, Shortliffe EH. On Exemplary Scientific Conduct Regarding Submission of Manuscripts to Biomedical Informatics Journals. Methods Inf Med 2006; 45: 1-3 as well as Comp Methods Prog Biomed 2006; 81: 195-196, Int J Med Inform 2006; 75; 343-345, J Am Med Inform Assoc 2006; 13: 113-114, J Biomed Inform 2006; 39: 1-2.
• 13 Publisher’s note.. Methods takes a big step forward to epub. Methods Inf Med 2007; 46 (04) II.
• 14 Aronsky D, Haux R, Leong TY, McCray A. The Student Editorial Board of Methods of Information in Medicine – an opportunity to educate tomorrow’s peer reviewers. Methods Inf Med 2007; 46: 623-624.
• 15 Haux R. Methods of Information in Medicine is changing – enhancing services to our authors and readers. Methods Inf Med 2008; 47: 469.
• 16 Haux R, Aronsky D, Leong TY, McCray A. Methods Extends Free Access to Papers and Offers Optional Open Access Model: New Services and Opportunities for Authors and Readers. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 1-2.
• 17 Haux R. Medical informatics: past, present, future. Int J Med Inform 2010; 79: 599-610.
• 18 Hoerbst A, Ammenwerth E. Electronic health records. A systematic review on quality requirements. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 320-336.
• 19 Blobel B. Architectural approach to eHealth for enabling paradigm changes in health. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 123-134.
• 20 Khajouei R, Jaspers MW. The impact of CPOE medication systems’ design aspects on usability, workflow and medication orders: a systematic review. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 3-19.
• 21 Nagy M, Hanzlícek P, Precková P, Ríha A, Dioszegi M, Seidl L, Zvárová J. Semantic interoperability in Czech healthcare environment supported by HL7 version 3. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 186-195.
• 22 Jahn F, Issler L, Winter A, Takabayashi K. Comparing a Japanese and a German hospital information system. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 531-539.
• 23 Latoszek-Berendsen A, Tange H, van den Herik HJ, Hasman A. From Clinical Practice Guidelines to Computer-interpretable Guidelines. A Literature Overview. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 550-570.
• 24 Selvaraj N, Lee J, Chon KH. Time-varying methods for characterizing nonstationary dynamics of physiological systems. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 435-442.
• 25 Schmidt-Richberg A, Handels H, Ehrhardt J. Integrated segmentation and non-linear registration for organ segmentation and motion field estimation in 4D CT data. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 344-349.
• 26 Smith B, Brochhausen M. Putting biomedical ontologies to work. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 135-140.
• 27 Kastrin A, Peterlin B, Hristovski D. Chi-square-based scoring function for categorization of MEDLINE citations. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 371-378.
• 28 Deserno TM, Antani S, Long LR. Content-based image retrieval for scientific literature access. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 371-380.
• 29 Berner ES, McGowan JJ. Use of diagnostic decision support systems in medical education. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 412-417.
• 30 Schuemie MJ, Talmon JL, Moorman PW, Kors JA. Mapping the domain of medical informatics. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 76-83.
• 31 Haux R, Murray PJ. On IMIA’s international activities in health and biomedical informatics education. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 305-309.
• 32 Mantas J, Ammenwerth E, Demiris G, Hasman A. et al. (IMIA Recommendations on Education Task Force). Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics. First Revision. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 105-120.
• 33 Luneski A, Konstantinidis E, Bamidis PD. Affective medicine. A review of affective computing efforts in medical informatics. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 207-218.
• 34 Arnrich B, Mayora O, Bardram J, Tröster G. Pervasive healthcare: paving the way for a pervasive, user-centered and preventive healthcare model. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 67-73.
• 35 Tanaka H. Omics-based medicine and systems pathology. A new perspective for personalized and predictive medicine. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 173-185.
• 36 Kulikowski CA, Kulikowski CW. Biomedical and health informatics in translational medicine. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 4-10.
• 37 Ziegler A, Vens M. Generalized estimating equations. Notes on the choice of the working correlation matrix. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 421-425.
• 38 Scherag A, Hebebrand J, Wichmann HE, Jöckel KH. Evaluating Strategies for Marker Ranking in Genome-wide Association Studies of Complex Traits. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 632-640.
• 39 Pfeifer B, Wurz M, Hanser F, Seger M, Netzer M, Osl M, Modre-Osprian R, Schreier G, Baumgartner C. An epidemiological modeling and data integration framework. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 290-296.
• 40 Shen Y, Cooper GF. A new prior for Bayesian anomaly detection: application to biosurveillance. Methods Inf Med 2010; 49: 44-53.