research informatics, etc. It is obvious that this list may be extended by new
terminological units under the influence of advancing information and communication
technologies and their further penetration into medicine and healthcare system.
In order to avoid terminological ambiguity and inconsistency, we recommend
following tendencies of MI terminology usage by such leading world professional
organizations as International Medical Informatics Association, American Medical
Informatics Association, European Federation for Medical Informatics and the
Canadian MI association Digital Health Canada. We consider these organizations to
be unique MI schools, which both determine primary directions of their activity and
directly influence the terminology usage. In addition, the above-mentioned
associations consolidate leading professionals that boost the development of MI
education.
American Medical Informatics Association is one of the most progressive MI
schools. The association uses ‘biomedical informatics’ as an umbrella term for the
interdisciplinary knowledge domain at the junction of biomedicine and informatics
[19]. Thus, in the USA biomedical informatics is determined as an applied informatics
field that develops methods, technical means and theoretical framework for using
biomedical information to promote medical research, to improve population health and
quality of healthcare services [1].
In contrast to the USA, the term ‘health informatics’ is commonly used in Canada.
It was present in the title of the national professional organization Canada’s Health
Informatics Association till 2017. Health informatics is considered the science at the
convergence of clinical practice, medical information management, information
technologies and management practice in medicine and healthcare system. The main
tasks of health informatics in Canada are the delivery of high-quality medical service,
disease prevention, popularization of healthy lifestyle, etc. [14].
The analysis of the terminology used by European Federation for Medical
Informatics as the formal representative of national MI organizations of Eastern and
Western European countries reveals the preference to using ‘medical informatics’ in
its English-language documentation. In fact, the term determines MI as an umbrella
term for a number of specialties related to healthcare and informatics [26].
The above-mentioned MI organizations are members of International Medical
Informatics Association. It plays a crucial role in implementing information and
communication technologies into medicine and supports researches on effective
informatization of the healthcare system as well as development of educational policy
on professional training of MI workforce. The association uses the term ‘biomedical
informatics’ in its widest meaning covering all possible determining adjectives
including ‘health’, ‘medical’, ‘nursing’, ‘bio’, etc. [33]. Moreover, in the International
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