Are Medical Informatics and Nursing Informatics Distinct Disciplines?: The 1999 ACMI Debate

Abstract

A b s t r a c t The 1999 debate of the American College of Medical Informatics focused onthe proposition that medical informatics and nursing informatics are distinctive disciplines that require their own core curricula, training programs, and professional identities. Proponents of this position emphasized that informatics training, technology applications, and professional identities are closely tied to the activities of the health professionals they serve and that, as nursing and medicine differ, so do the corresponding efforts in information science and technology. Opponents of the proposition asserted that informatics is built on a re-usable and widely applicable set of methods that are common to all health science disciplines, and that ''medical informatics'' continues to be a useful name for a composite core discipline that should be studied by all students, regardless of their health profession orientation. Received for publication: 1/8/00; accepted for publication: 1/18/00. burgh organized the debate to focus on professional training and professional identities in informatics. As with previous ACMI debates, 1-3 the issues were intentionally polarized on a specific proposition:Resolved: Medical informatics and nursing informatics are distinctive disciplines that require their own core curricula, training programs, and professional identities. This is a classical debate, the purpose of which was not to achieve consensus or to declare a winning or losing debating team, but rather to bring attention to contemporary views of the similarities and differences of the health-related disciplines involved in informatics training, research, and development. What follows is an edited transcript of that debate.

The current state of Nursing Informatics – An international cross-sectional survey

“…There is ongoing discussion regarding whether NI is its own discipline [11,12]. There are general arguments against role, task and domain-oriented definitions of NI, as they for example suggest that informatics projects only apply to one group of people, such as nurses [12].…”

Use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in Medical Education

“…Secondly, PDAs are widely used in both medical and nursing practices. Thirdly, PDAs are becoming widely used for educational purposes [11][12][13][14].…”

Dental Informatics: An Emerging Biomedical Informatics Discipline

“…24,39 On one hand, it is understandable that established professions such as dentistry and nursing would like to claim informatics as part of their domain. 24,39 On one hand, it is understandable that established professions such as dentistry and nursing would like to claim informatics as part of their domain.…”

“…How exactly discipline-based informatics areas (such as nursing informatics, dental informatics, pathology informatics) are related to biomedical informatics is subject to an ongoing debate. 24,39 On one hand, it is understandable that established professions such as dentistry and nursing would like to claim informatics as part of their domain. On the other hand, an excessive number of boundaries has the danger of balkanizing biomedical informatics as a whole.…”