Research Informatics.org

At the recent Clinical Research Forum (CRF) meeting in Washington D.C., during the IT Roundtable, there was a vigorous discussion of how to differentiate informatics and IT, especially in light of many individuals interchangeable use of the two labels. In response to that discussion topic, and to reiterate my comments during the CRF IT Roundtable, I would argue that creating a dichotomous definition of what constitutes IT and what constitutes informatics is both erroneous and extremely problematic. In reality, the two domains are both complementary and co-dependent in the biomedical domain. Let me elaborate: say for example an informatician develops a new conceptual or information-theoretic model concerning the way in which clinicians evaluate the eligibility of potential clinical trials subjects at the point of care, and the information types required to satisfy such a workflow and decision making process. The informatician would most likely, as next step in the scientific process, implement and critically evaluate the performance of a software application or other type of technology-centric intervention, that was intended to utilize such conceptual and information-theoretic models in order to positively (or in any capacity) effect one ore more targeted outcomes that were pertinent to the given experimental domain or setting. If the results of such evaluations were positive, it is most likely that the informatician would then collaborate with IT professionals to expand the scope of such testing and evaluation, while also engaging in further development in order to ensure that the software or technology-intervention is appropriately scalable, extensible, and interoperable with the broader “real world” setting is is intended to be deployed in. I would label this particular process as the “translational” stage of informatics, when new theories, methods, and technology-components move from purely academic analyses to pre-production design, development, and evaluation cycles. Subsequently, the IT professionals involved in this “translation” stage would go on to employ accepted information science and technology best practices, with the ultimate objective of deploying and supporting such a software or technology intervention in a production setting.

There are two notable feedback mechanisms in this model, as follows: 1) from initial intervention evaluation to the refinement of underlying models and frameworks; and 2) from production deployment/support/management of a system to the design of new or revised theoretical or conceptual frameworks and models, informed by “real world” observations. These feedback mechanisms are perhaps the most important manifestation of the critical relationship existing between informatics and IT, and are exemplary of why we cannot simply categorize these two areas as distinct and separate disciplines, particularly in demanding environments such as biomedicine.