About Biomedical Informatics

Biomedical Informatics is the multidisciplinary scientific field concerned with the acquisition, storage, retrieval, communication, and optimal use of health and biomedical information for problem solving and decision-making. Biomedical Informatics has as its driving goals the improvement of health and healthcare, and the advancement of the biomedical sciences. Other names often used for this broad field or major aspects of it include Medical Informatics or Health Informatics.

To advance the field, biomedical informatics professionals develop, study, and utilize methods, approaches, and technologies to address challenges in the broad biomedical and healthcare domain. In doing so, work in biomedical informatics calls upon but is unique from computer science, information science, cognitive science, organizational management, and the sciences of the professions to which it is applied.

The sub-disciplines of biomedical informatics relate to various health and biomedical professions, domains or activities to which informatics methods are applied. While the issues and challenges in these sub-disciplines can vary widely, they all share common informatics techniques. Within each sub-discipline, common elements are coupled with domain specific informatics, computational and analytical approaches.

Examples of these sub-disciplines include:

1. •Clinical Informatics
   

2. •Bioinformatics
   

3. •Clinical and Translational Research Informatics
   

4. •Population Health Informatics
   

5. •Nursing Informatics
   

6. •Consumer Health Informatics