Disseminating informatics knowledge and training the next generation of leaders

The field of biomedical informatics has experienced an enormous expansion in the past few years. As I have edited JAMIA since 2011, I have had the unique opportunity of following this evolution in terms of the volume, diversity, and impact of manuscripts, partially measured by the number of article downloads and citations.^{1 2} The remarkable work of previous editors Bill Stead and Randy Miller, of current and past associate editors, of editorial board members, and of volunteer reviewers has ensured JAMIA's position as the premier journal for scholarly biomedical informatics publications. Over the past 4 years, the number of annual submissions and published articles has more than doubled, and the journal has continued to accrue a large number of citations (figure 1).

Figure 1.

Increase in the number of JAMIA submissions, publications, and citations since 2010.

The contributions of our authors are key to making the journal an exciting vehicle for documenting the scientific progress of our multi- and inter-disciplinary profession. A summary of the most cited articles from 2011–2013, as listed in the Web of Science (http://apps.webofknowledge.com), is shown in table 1. These original articles or educational reviews represent some of the best work in JAMIA, and clearly reflect a variety of informatics subspecialties. Among the excellent collection of articles, some deserve special mention for their role in expanding the scope of the journal in new directions. For example, articles by Archer et al³ and Sarkar et al⁴ described patient-centered systems—even before this movement became widespread—and paved the way for many other outstanding articles. Frisse et al⁵ were among the first to describe an economic evaluation of health information exchange, and their article was followed by other highly cited articles addressing the economic impact of health IT. Influential phenotyping articles by Kho et al,⁶ Carroll et al,⁷ and Newton et al⁸ reported on outcomes of the eMERGE project. A popular article by Hripcsak and Albers⁹ provided an excellent guide to ‘next generation’ phenotyping. McGraw¹⁰ reported on public trust and the privacy of electronic health records (EHRs), leading the way to a number of articles related to the secondary use of EHRs and associated strategies and technologies to protect patient privacy.

Table 1.

Most cited JAMIA articles 2011–2013

Article title and year of publication	First author	Publication month	Total citations as of September 13, 2014
2011
1. Effects of clinical decision-support systems on practitioner performance and patient outcomes: a synthesis of high-quality systematic review findings31	Jaspers	May	56
2. 2010 i2b2/VA challenge on concepts, assertions, and relations in clinical text32	Uzuner	September	55
3. Personal health records: a scoping review3	Archer	July	43
4. Natural language processing: an introduction33	Nadkarni	September	32
5. Social disparities in internet patient portal use in diabetes: evidence that the digital divide extends beyond access4	Sarkar	May	31
6. Data from clinical notes: a perspective on the tension between structure and flexible documentation34	Rosenbloom	March	31
7. Factors motivating and affecting health information exchange usage35	Vest	March	29
8. Anticipating and addressing the unintended consequences of health IT and policy: a report from the AMIA 2009 Health Policy Meeting36	Bloomrosen	January	28
9. Health-information exchange: why are we doing it, and what are we doing?37	Kuperman	September	26
10. Health information exchange usage in emergency departments and clinics: the who, what, and why38	Johnson	September	24
2012
1. Use of diverse electronic medical record systems to identify genetic risk for type 2 diabetes within a genome-wide association study6	Kho	March	43
2. The financial impact of health information exchange on emergency department care5	Frisse	May	30
3. Portability of an algorithm to identify rheumatoid arthritis in electronic health records7	Carroll	June	28
4. Validation of a common data model for active safety surveillance research29	Overhage	January	26
5. The effectiveness of interventions using electronic reminders to improve adherence to chronic medication: a systematic review of the literature39	Vervloet	September	23
6. Harmonized patient-reported data elements in the electronic health record: supporting meaningful use by primary care action on health behaviors and key psychosocial factors40	Estabrooks	July	22
7. Validity of electronic health record-derived quality measurement for performance monitoring41	Parsons	July	22
8. The National Center for Biomedical Ontology25	Musen	March	22
9. iDASH: integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing21	Ohno-Machado	March	21
10. A novel signal detection algorithm for identifying hidden drug-drug interactions in adverse event reports42	Tatonetti	January	20
2013
1. Next-generation phenotyping of electronic health records9	Hripcsak	January	21
2. Web-scale pharmacovigilance: listening to signals from the crowd43	White	May	20
3. Methods and dimensions of electronic health record data quality assessment: enabling reuse for clinical research44	Weiskop	January	20
4. Enhancing patient safety and quality of care by improving the usability of electronic health record systems: recommendations from AMIA45	Middleton	June	15
5. Validation of electronic medical record-based phenotyping algorithms: results and lessons learned from the eMERGE network8	Newton	June	13
6. Reduction in medication errors in hospitals due to adoption of computerized provider order entry systems46	Radley	May	13
7. An integrated approach to identify causal network modules of complex diseases with application to colorectal cancer47	Wen	July	12
8. Clinical decision support for genetically guided personalized medicine: a systematic review48	Welch	March	10
9. An i2b2-based, generalizable, open source, self-scaling chronic disease registry28	Natter	January	10
10. Building public trust in uses of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act de-identified data10	McGraw	January	9

The expansion of topics and authors in JAMIA reflects the evolution of informatics in general as well as AMIA initiatives such as the Joint Summits in Translational Science and the annual AMIA Policy Meetings. In the past 4 years, many articles have been published in special focus issues managed by regular and guest associate editors, covering translational bioinformatics,^{11 12} clinical research informatics,¹³ privacy,¹⁴ imaging,¹⁵ EHR phenotyping,¹⁶ natural language processing,¹⁷ and big data.^{18 19} These articles were well received by our readers. Special focus issues on visualization and standards that are scheduled for publication in early 2015 will add to this important collection.

Large funding initiatives in the USA such as NIH's National Centers for Biomedical Computing led to seminal articles describing specific areas.^20–27 These brief communications were highly cited because they made software or data resources available to the public. As our field has evolved, open-source software and data sharing have become critical and JAMIA is an important venue for their dissemination. For example, Natter et al²⁸ described open-source software for disease registries. Overhage et al²⁹ described a data model for comparative effectiveness research that has been adopted by several institutions around the country. We expect to receive future submissions reporting on the NIH Big Data to Knowledge initiative,³⁰ which embodies the spirit of informatics and is a landmark for biomedical and behavioral research in general.

JAMIA's mission is not limited to disseminating scholarly work: it also plays an important role in education. An open access monthly journal club features editor's choice articles in webinars presented live by the article authors. Through direct interaction with the authors or by later viewing of recorded sessions, informatics trainees and a broad community of non-informaticians are exposed to the best work in our field (http://healthsciences.ucsd.edu/som/medicine/divisions/dbmi/education/journal-club/Pages/default.aspx). Over 25 000 views from users around the globe attest to the value of this resource. Another important outreach and learning opportunity was provided to informatics trainees who were selected through a rigorous selection process to serve on the student editorial board. This innovative activity, initiated well before I started editing the journal, continues to provide an opportunity for trainees to be guided through the process of conducting a balanced, fair, and constructive review of articles originating from both new and seasoned authors. Additionally, by working directly with the editorial office, 17 guest editors have had the opportunity to understand how the entire editorial process works, from the formulation of calls for papers to triage, peer-review, author revision, and finally journal publication.

Editing a journal is a perfect example of a team activity in which each player is essential. Editorial board members and volunteer peer reviewers represent a broad spectrum of expertise areas, institutions, and countries and provide support for all our decisions. Their insightful, constructive, and timely reviews are deeply appreciated. Experienced associate editors coordinate the review of manuscripts in their areas of expertise, contribute new ideas to optimize our processes, and help shape the vision for the journal. The editorial office staff, publisher production team, and AMIA leaders are also critical in making this complex organization run smoothly. They work tirelessly behind the scenes to bring the best possible product to our readers.

The large JAMIA team has a clear, common goal in mind: to enrich our reader's knowledge of informatics. We strive to publish articles that will bring new contributions to the informatics community or will help disseminate informatics to new, untapped audiences. Through a diverse combination of original research and application reports, reviews, perspectives, brief communications, and case reports, we are able to disseminate exceptionally innovative and practical ideas describing how informatics in healthcare and biomedical and behavioral research can contribute to the overall goals of providing better healthcare, improving outcomes, and unraveling disease processes and population trends.

I remain committed to continuously improving the journal's processes and contents to meet the changing needs of a growing audience. I have been entrusted with an important role in informatics, and thank everyone who made this possible (a complete list of names is not provided, as it is so long that it would violate JAMIA's word limits for an editorial). I manage an all-star team and look forward to serving as JAMIA's editor-in-chief for a second term.