Department of Biomedical Informatics
The Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) arose out of the Center for Medical Informatics, formed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Presbyterian Hospital in 1987. The Center became a formal department and began training graduate students in 1994, making it the second oldest such department. It is consistently identified as among the very best programs in the world in our field. The training program is large (60 trainees) and attracts superb candidates for advanced degrees. The department has a strong service component, which provides $2 million in information technology services to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and serves as a living laboratory for informatics research. Rich interdisciplinary relationships exist throughout the university and hospital, with many faculty having joint appointments in other departments or schools.
The department’s overall goals are discovery and impact: we wish to discover new information methods, augment the biomedical knowledge base, and improve the health of the population. Ultimately, we hope that all our work leads eventually to improved health for society.
Our department applies its methods on scales from atoms to world populations. We use the word biomedicine in our name to refer to our application area, but we mean it to be interpreted broadly, including all aspects of health care, prevention, and public health.
Using social network analysis, we found that our researchers fall roughly into three communities of practice, based on the types of methods they use (figure adapted from JAMIA 2008;15:780-2; faculty members represented by numbered circles):
Empirical Discovery & Prediction (blue, on right)—Computational simulation of biological systems focused on genomics and proteomics, data mining and knowledge discovery, machine learning and intelligent systems, and visual simulation of human biological systems.
Human & Organizational Factors (green, on left)—Decision support, health technology evaluation, consumer health, electronic health records, public health systems, cognition, human computer interface and usability, and the organizational impact of information and technology
Information Management (red, in center)—Clinical information systems, safety and quality improvement, knowledge management, information standards and interoperability, telemedicine, concept representation and natural language processing.
