Data Sciences and Informatics: What’s in a name?

This special issue of JAMIA focuses on data sciences. But what is the relationship between data sciences and health (or biomedical) informatics? The fundamentals of the field of informatics have been constant – we are investigators, educators, and practitioners who collect important health information. We organize, analyze, and convert data into knowledge, and then we use technology to apply that knowledge to improve health and health care. While our field has been called different names through the years – medical information sciences, biomedical informatics, health informatics – the fundamental science and its application in health and health care have been consistent. Informatics professionals as a group are composed of a diverse collection of individuals with diverse areas of expertise. Take any aspect of health or health care, and the informatics applications span 360 degrees of distinction. While there are distinct communities, informatics is more than just the sum of its parts; it is a core set of knowledge applied by these individuals to solve their unique problems. Nurses, public health officers, imaging specialists, basic scientists, and others: informatics professionals have highlighted their diverse interests in describing expertise in nursing informatics, public health informatics, and other areas of investigation. Others describe their area of interest in consumer informatics, clinical research informatics, or translational bioinformatics. The distinctions help to identify the people for whom and the areas in which we use informatics to improve health and health care and provide a sense of community.