The Birth and Evolution of a Discipline Devoted to Information in Biomedicine and Health Care

A. T. McCray; O. Gefeller; D. Aronsky; T. Y. Leong; I. N. Sarkar; D. Bergemann; D. A. B. Lindberg; J. H. van Bemmel; R. Haux

doi:10.3414/ME11-06-0001

Methods of Information in Medicine, Table of Contents

Methods Inf Med 2011; 50(06): 491-507
DOI: 10.3414/ME11-06-0001

Original Articles

Schattauer GmbH

The Birth and Evolution of a Discipline Devoted to Information in Biomedicine and Health Care

As Reflected in its Longest Running Journal

Authors

A. T. McCray

¹Harvard Medical School, Center for Biomedical Informatics, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
O. Gefeller

²University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, Germany
D. Aronsky

³Vanderbilt University, Department of Biomedical Informatics & Emergency Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
T. Y. Leong

⁴National University of Singapore, Department of Computer Science, Singapore
I. N. Sarkar

⁵University of Vermont, Center for Clinical and Translational Science, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Department of Computer Science, Burlington, Vermont, USA
D. Bergemann

⁶Schattauer Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany
D. A. B. Lindberg

⁷National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
J. H. van Bemmel

⁸Erasmus Medical Center, Department of Medical Informatics, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
R. Haux

⁹University of Braunschweig – Institute of Technology and Hannover Medical School, Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, Germany

Abstract

Summary

Background: The journal Methods of Information in Medicine, founded in 1962, has now completed its 50th volume. Its publications during the last five decades reflect the formation of a discipline that deals with information in biomedicine and health care. Objectives: To report about 1) the journal‘s origin, 2) the individuals who have significantly contributed to it, 3) trends in the journal’s aims and scope, 4) influential papers and 5) major topics published in Methods over the years.

Methods: Methods included analysing the correspondence and journal issues in the archives of the editorial office and of the publisher, citation analysis using the ISI and Scopus databases, and analysing the articles’ Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in MEDLINE.

Results: In the journal’s first 50 years 208 editorial board members and/or editors contributed to the journal’s development, with most individuals coming from Europe and North America. The median time of service was 11 years. At the time of analysis 2,456 articles had been indexed with Me SH. Topics included computerized systems of various types, informatics methodologies, and topics related to a specific medical domain. Some MeSH topic entries were heavily and regularly represented in each of the journal‘s five decades (e.g. information systems and medical records), while others were important in a particular decade, but not in other decades (e.g. punched-card systems and systems integration). Seven papers were cited more than 100 times and these also covered a broad range of themes such as knowledge representation, analysis of biomedical data and knowledge, clinical decision support and electronic patient records. Conclusions: Methods of Information in Medicine is the oldest international journal in biomedical informatics. The journal’s development over the last 50 years correlates with the formation of this new discipline. It has and continues to stress the basic methodology and scientific fundamentals of organizing, representing and analysing data, information and knowledge in biomedicine and health care. It has and continues to stimulate multi-disciplinary communication on research that is devoted to high-quality, efficient health care, to quality of life and to the progress of biomedicine and the health sciences.

Keywords

Methods of Information in Medicine - medical informatics - biomedical informatics - health informatics

Full Text

References

References
1 Wagner G. Die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Medizinische Dokumentation und Statistik (GMDS) [The German Society for Medical Documentation and Statistics]. In: Koller S, Wagner G editors. Handbuch der medizinischen Dokumentation und Datenverarbeitung [Handbook for medical documentation and data processing]. Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1975. pp 1392-1407.
2 http://www.gmds.de Accessed April 25 2011
3 Letter from Otto Nacke to Gustav Wagner from February 8, 1961. Methods Editorial Office Archive
4 Oberhoffer G. Report on an international seminar for medical documentation and statistics. Methods Inf Med 1962; 1: 27-31.
5 Letter from Hubert Pipberger to Gustav Wagner from January 2, 1962. Methods Editorial Office Archive
6 Notes and documents of Gustav Wagner from an editorial meeting in January 5, 1962. Methods Editorial Office Archive
7 Catalogue of the United States of America’s National Library of Medicine.. http://www.nlm.nih.gov Accessed April 23 2011
8 http://www.efmi.org Accessed April 24 2011
9 Lorenzi NM. 40 years of IMIA: Shaping medical informatics worldwide. Yearb Med Inform 2007 pp 163-164.
10 Ball MJ, van Bemmel JH, Kaihara S. IMIA presidential retrospectives on medical informatics. Yearb Med Inform 2007 pp 165-175.
11 Kulikowski CA. IMIA: Coalescing medical informatics worldwide for 40 years. Yearb Med Inform 2007 pp 176-85.
12 Huesing SA. IMIA – a 40 year organizational overview. Yearb Med Inform 2007 pp 186-191.
13 Peterson HE, Hutter M. IMIA’s publication history. Yearb Med Inform 2007 pp 192-196.
14 http://www.imia.org Accessed May 9 2010
15 Lun KC. Methods designated “Official Journal of IMIA”. Methods Inf Med 2003; 42 (Suppl. 03) IV-V.
16 http://www.schattauer.de Accessed April 25 2011
17 Circular letter from Gustav Wagner to Methods Editorial Board members from December 23, 1964. Methods Editorial Office Archive
18 Letter from Gustav Wagner to Paul Matis from September 11, 1964. Methods Editorial Office Archive
19 Rate card, in English, on Methods of Information in Medicine, being effective from January 1, 1963. Methods Editorial Office Archive
20 Wagner G. editor. Krebs – Dokumentation und Statistik maligner Tumoren. Bericht der 10. Jahrestagung des ‘Arbeitsausschuss Medizin’ in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Dokumentation e. V. (Supplement 1 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1966
21 Schröder J, Immich H. editors. Früherkennung von Krankheiten als methodisches Problem. Bericht über die 11. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Dokumentation und Statistik in der DGD e. V. (Supplement 2 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1967
22 Griesser G, Wagner G. editors. Automatisierung’ des klinischen Laboratoriums. Bericht über die 12 Jahrestagung der GMDS. (Supplement 3 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1968
23 Fritze E, Wagner G. editors. Dokumentation des Krankheitsverlaufs. Bericht über die 13. Jahrestagung der GMDS. (Supplement 4 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1969
24 Heite HJ. editor. Anamnese. Methoden der Erfassung und Auswertung anamnestischer Daten. Bericht über die 14. Jahrestagung der GMDS. (Supplement 5 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1971
25 Fuchs G, Wagner G. editors. KrankenhausInformationssysteme. Bericht über die 16. Jahrestagung der GMDS. (Supplement 6 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1972
26 Lange HJ, Wagner G. editors. Computerunterstützte ärztliche Diagnostik. Bericht über die 17 Jahrestagung der GMDS. (Supplement 7 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1973
27 Nacke O, Wagner G. editors. Dokumentation und Information im Dienst der Gesundheitspflege. Bericht über die 18. Jahrestagung der DGMDS in der DGD. (Supplement 8 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1976
28 Koller S, Berger J. editors. Klinisch-statistische Forschung. Bericht über die 19. Jahrestagung der DGMDS in der DGD. (Supplement 9 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1976
29 Wagner G, Köhler CO. editors. Interaktive Datenverarbeitung in der Medizin. Bericht über die 20. Jahrestagung der DGMDS. (Supplement 10 of Methods of Information in Medicine). Stuttgart: Schattauer; 1976
30 E-mail from Dieter Bergemann to Reinhold Haux from March 16 2001
31 Wagner G, Lindberg DAB. In memoriam Peter L, Reichertz. Methods Inf Med 1987; 26: 179-182.
32 van Bemmel JH. Medical data, information, and knowledge. Methods Inf Med 1988; 27: 109-110.
33 van Bemmel JH. Transferring the helm. Methods Inf Med 2001; 40: 168-169.
34 Haux R, McCray AT. Processing medical data, information and knowledge: new opportunities in the information society. Methods Inf Med 2001; 40: 272-274.
35 van Bemmel JH, Lindberg DAB, Grémy F, Shortliffe EH, Wigertz OB. editors. Data, information and knowledge in medicine. Developments in Medical Informatics in historical perspective. Dedicated to Professor Gustav Wagner on the occasion of 25 years of Methods of Information in Medicine. Methods Inf Med 1988 27. (Special Issue 1988)
36 Haux R, Aronsky D, Leong TY, McCray AT. Methods in year 50: preserving the past and preparing for the future. Methods Inf Med 2011; 50: 1-6.
37 Haux R, Kulikowski C. editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2006: Assessing information technologies for health. Methods Inf Med 2006; 45 (Suppl. 01) 1-240.
38 Geissbuhler A, Haux R, Kulikowski C. editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2007: Biomedical informatics for sustainable health systems. Methods Inf Med 2007; 46 (Suppl. 01) 1-249.
39 Geissbuhler A, Kulikowski C. editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2008: Access to health information. Methods Inf Med 2008; 47 (Suppl. 01) 1-247.
40 Lindberg DA, Humphreys BL, McCray AT. The Unified Medical Language System. Methods Inf Med 1993; 32 (Suppl. 04) 281-291.
41 Cimino JJ. Desiderata for controlled medical vocabularies in the twenty-first century. Methods Inf Med 1998; 37 4–5 394-403.
42 van Bemmel JH, Kors JA, van Herpen G. Methodology of the modular ECG analysis system MEANS. Methods Inf Med 1990; 29 (Suppl. 04) 346-353.
43 Abt K. Descriptive data analysis: a concept between confirmatory and exploratory data analysis. Methods Inf Med 1987; 26 (Suppl. 02) 77-88.
44 D’Hoore W, Sicotte C, Tilquin C. Risk adjustment in outcome assessment: theCharlson comorbidity index. Methods Inf Med 1993; 32 (Suppl. 05) 382-387.
45 Heckerman DE, Horvitz EJ, Nathwani BN. Toward normative expert systems: Part I. The Pathfinder project. Methods Inf Med 1992; 31 (Suppl. 02) 90-105.
46 Rector AL, Nowlan WA, Kay S. Foundations for an electronic medical record. Methods Inf Med 1991; 30 (Suppl. 03) 179-186.
47 Rautaharju PM, MacInnis PJ, Warren JW, Wolf HK, Rykers PM, Calhoun HP. Methodology of ECG interpretation in the Dalhousie program; NOVA-CODE ECG classification procedures for clinical trials and population health surveys. Methods Inf Med 1990; 29 (Suppl. 04) 362-374.
48 Vlug AE, van der Lei J, Mosseveld BM, van Wijk MA, van der Linden PD, Sturkenboom MC, van Bemmel JH. Postmarketing surveillance based on electronic patient records: the IPCI project. Methods Inf Med 1999; 38 4–5 339-344.
49 Rector AL, Solomon WD, Nowlan WA, Rush TW, Zanstra PE, Claassen WM. A Terminology Server for medical language and medical information systems. Methods Inf Med 1995; 34 1–2 147-157.
50 McCray AT, Nelson SJ. The representation of meaning in the UMLS. Methods Inf Med 1995; 34 1–2 193-201.
51 Heathfield HA, Wyatt J. Philosophies for the design and development of clinical decision-support systems. Methods Inf Med 1993; 32 (Suppl. 01) 1-8. discussion 9-17.
52 Hilden J, Habbema JD, Bjerregaard B. The measurement of performance in probabilistic diagnosis. III. Methods based on continuous functions of the-diagnostic probabilities. Methods Inf Med 1978; 17 (Suppl. 04) 238-246.
53 Rector AL. Clinical terminology: why is it so hard?. Methods Inf Med 1999; 38 4–5 239-252.
54 Miller RA, Masarie Jr FE. The demise of the “Greek Oracle” model for medical diagnostic systems. Methods Inf Med 1990; 29 (Suppl. 01) 1-2.
55 Shwe MA, Middleton B, Heckerman DE, Henrion M, Horvitz EJ, Lehmann HP, Cooper GF. Probabilistic diagnosis using a reformulation of the INTER-NIST-1/QMR knowledge base. I. The probabilistic model and inference algorithms. Methods Inf Med 1991; 30 (Suppl. 04) 241-255.
56 Kuhn KA, Giuse DA. From hospital information systems to health information systems. Problems, challenges, perspectives. Methods Inf Med 2001; 40 (Suppl. 04) 275-287.
57 Hilden J, Habbema JD, Bjerregaard B. The measurement of performance in probabilistic diagnosis. II. Trustworthiness of the exact values of the diagnostic probabilities. Methods Inf Med 1978; 17 (Suppl. 04) 227-237.
58 Lehmann TM, Guld MO, Thies C, Fischer B, Spitzer K, Keysers D, Ney H, Kohnen M, Schubert H, Wein BB. Content-based image retrieval in medical applications. Methods Inf Med 2004; 43 (Suppl. 04) 354-361.
59 O’Neil M, Payne C, Read J. Read Codes Version 3: a user led terminology. Methods Inf Med 1995; 34 1–2 187-192.
60 Willems JL, Arnaud P, van Bemmel JH, Degani R, Macfarlane PW, Zywietz C. Common standards for quantitative electrocardiography: goals and main results. CSE Working Party. Methods Inf Med 1990; 29 (Suppl. 04) 263-271.
61 Jensen EW, Lindholm P, Henneberg SW. Autoregressive modeling with exogenous input of middle-latency auditory-evoked potentials to measure rapid changes in depth of anesthesia. Methods Inf Med 1996; 35 (Suppl. 03) 256-260.
62 Woodbury MA, Manton KG. A new procedure for analysis of medical classification. Methods Inf Med 1982; 21 (Suppl. 04) 210-220.
63 Abel U, Berger J, Wiebelt H. CRITLEVEL: an exploratory procedure for the evaluation of quantitative prognostic factors. Methods Inf Med 1984; 23 (Suppl. 03) 154-156.
64 Roos LL, Wajda A. Record linkage strategies. Part I: Estimating information and evaluating approaches. Methods Inf Med 1991; 30 (Suppl. 02) 117-123.
65 Baud RH, Rassinoux AM, Scherrer JR. Natural language processing and semantical representation of medical texts. Methods Inf Med 1992; 31 (Suppl. 02) 117-125.
66 Macfarlane PW, Devine B, Latif S, McLaughlin S, Shoat DB, Watts MP. Methodology of ECG interpretation in the Glasgow program. Methods Inf Med 1990; 29 (Suppl. 04) 354-361.
67 Berg M. Medical work and the computer-based patient record: a sociological perspective. Methods Inf Med 1998; 37 (Suppl. 03) 294-301.
68 Moorman PW, van Ginneken AM, van der Lei J, van Bemmel JH. A model for structured data entry based on explicit descriptional knowledge. Methods Inf Med 1994; 33 (Suppl. 05) 454-463.
69 Luscombe NM, Greenbaum D, Gerstein M. What is bioinformatics? A proposed definition and overview of the field. Methods Inf Med 2001; 40 (Suppl. 04) 346-358.
70 Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on education in health and medical informatics. Methods Inf Med 2000; 39 (Suppl. 03) 267-277.
71 Cimino JJ. Review paper: coding systems in health care. Methods Inf Med 1996; 35 4–5 273-284.
72 Wardle A, Wardle L. Computer aided diagnosis--a review of research. Methods Inf Med 1978; 17 (Suppl. 01) 15-28.
73 Spyns P. Natural language processing in medicine: an overview. Methods Inf Med 1996; 35 4–5 285-301.
74 Das AK, Musen MA. A temporal query system for protocol-directed decision support. Methods Inf Med 1994; 33 (Suppl. 04) 358-370.
75 Habbema JD, Hilden J, Bjerregaard B. The measurement of performance in probabilistic diagnosis. I. The problem, descriptive tools, and measures based on classification matrices. Methods Inf Med 1978; 17 (Suppl. 04) 217-226.
76 Kardaun JW, Kardaun OJ. Comparative diagnostic performance of three radiological procedures for the detection of lumbar disk herniation. Methods Inf Med 1990; 29 (Suppl. 01) 12-22.
77 Pipberger HV, Klingeman JD, Cosma J. Computer evaluation of statistical properties of clinical information in the differential diagnosis of chest pain. Methods Inf Med 1968; 7 (Suppl. 02) 79-92.
78 Gorry GA. Computer-assisted clinical decision-making. Methods Inf Med 1973; 12 (Suppl. 01) 45-51.
79 Rector AL, Nowlan WA, Kay S, Goble CA, Howkins TJ. A framework for modelling the electronic medical record. Methods Inf Med 1993; 32 (Suppl. 02) 109-119.
80 Coomans D, Broeckaert I, Jonckheer M, Massart DL. Comparison of multivariate discrimination techniques for clinical data – application to the thyroid functional state. Methods Inf Med 1983; 22 (Suppl. 02) 93-101.
81 Kuhn K, Gaus W, Wechsler JG, Janowitz P, Tudyka J, Kratzer W, Swobodnik W, Ditschuneit H. Structured reporting of medical findings: evaluation of a system in gastroenterology. Methods Inf Med 1992; 31 (Suppl. 04) 268-274.
82 Middleton B, Shwe MA, Heckerman DE, Henrion M, Horvitz EJ, Lehmann HP, Cooper GF. Probabilistic diagnosis using a reformulation of the INTER-NIST-1/QMR knowledge base. II. Evaluation of diagnostic performance. Methods Inf Med 1991; 30 (Suppl. 04) 256-267.
83 Jurgensen HJ, Frolund C, Gustafsen J, Mosbech H, Guldhammer B, Mosbech J. Registration of diagnoses in the Danish National Registry of Patients. Methods Inf Med 1986; 25 (Suppl. 03) 158-164.
84 Adlassnig KP. A fuzzy logical model of computer-assisted medical diagnosis. Methods Inf Med 1980; 19 (Suppl. 03) 141-148.
85 Musen MA. Domain ontologies in software engineering: use of Protege with the EON architecture. Methods Inf Med 1998; 37 4–5 540-550.
86 Gjorup T. The kappa coefficient and the prevalence of a diagnosis. Methods Inf Med 1988; 27 (Suppl. 04) 184-186.
87 Fox J, Barber D, Bardhan KD. Alternatives to Bayes? A quantitative comparison with rule-based diagnostic inference. Methods Inf Med 1980; 19 (Suppl. 04) 210-215.
88 Darmoni SJ, Leroy JP, Baudic F, Douyere M, Piot J, Thirion B. CISMeF: a structured health resource guide. Methods Inf Med 2000; 39 (Suppl. 01) 30-35.
89 Kay S, Purves IN. Medical records and other stories: a narratological framework. Methods Inf Med 1996; 35 (Suppl. 02) 72-87.