The importance of consumer- and patient-oriented perspectives in biomedical and health informatics

摘要

An American Medical Informatics Association position paper reporting a clinical informatics practice analysis leads off this issue of Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and is contextualized by an editorial from Doug Fridsma in which he notes that "Recognition of the unique set of knowledge and skills associated with clinical/health informatics practice will create opportunities and raise expectations for informatics professionals." Regarding expectations for informatics professionals, the clinical practice analysis includes multiple specific tasks related to consumers and patients with associated areas of knowledge such as social determinants of health, use of patient-generated data, and consumer-facing health informatics applications (eg, patient portals, mobile health apps and devices, disease management, patient education, behavior modification). To emphasize this aspect of our field, I highlight other articles in this issue that explicitly reflect a consumer- or patient-oriented perspective.