Summary
Objectives:
Modeling is a significant part of research, education and practice in biomedical
and health informatics. Our objective was to explore, which types of models of processes
are used in current biomedical/ health informatics research, as reflected in publications
of scientific journals in this field. Also the implications for medical informatics
curricula were investigated.
Methods:
Retrospective, prolective observational study on recent publications of the two official
journals of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), the International Journal of Medical Informatics (IJMI) and Methods of Information in Medicine (MIM).
Results:
384 publications have been analyzed, 190 of IJMI and 194 of MIM. In regular papers
(69 in IJMI, 62 in MIM), analyzed here in part 1, all of these model types could be
found. In many publications we observed a mixture of models, being used to solve the
‘core’ research questions and also to systematically evaluate the research done. Knowledge
of (and models for) software engineering and project management are also often needed.
IJMI seems to have a closer focus on research concerning health information systems
and electronic patient records, with a strong emphasis on evaluation. MIM seems to
have a broader range of research approaches, including also statistical modeling and
computational intensive approaches. The aim to provide solutions for problems related
to data, information and knowledge processing and to study the general principles
of processing data, information and knowledge in medicine and health care in order
to contribute to improve the quality of health care, and of research and education
in medicine and the health sciences was given in all publications.
Conclusions:
Modeling continues to be a major task in research, education and practice in biomedical
and health informatics. Knowledge and skills concerning a broad range of model types
is needed.
Keywords
Modeling - biomedical informatics - medical informatics - health informatics