Integrating Clinical Data and Patient-Reported Outcomes for Analyzing Gender Differences and Progression in Multiple Sclerosis Using Machine Learning.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex neurodegenerative disease with a variable prognosis that complicates effective management and treatment. This study leverages machine learning (ML) to enhance the understanding of disease progression and uncover gender-based differences in MS by analyzing clinical data integrated with patient-reported outcomes (PROMs). We conducted a prospective cohort study involving 250 MS patients at a secondary care hospital in Spain over an 18-month period.

Digital Interventions and Their Unexpected Outcomes - Time for Digitalovigilance?

The application of digital interventions in healthcare beyond research has been translated in the development of software as a medical device. Along with corresponding regulations for medical devices, there is a need for assessing adverse events to conduct post-market surveillance and to appropriately label digital health interventions to ensure proper use and patient safety. To date unexpected consequences of digital health interventions are neglected or ignored, or at least remain undescribed in literature.

Correction: Personalized Precision Medicine for Health Care Professionals: Development of a Competency Framework.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/43656.].

Defining and Scoping Participatory Health Informatics: An eDelphi Study.

Background: Health care has evolved to support the involvement of individuals in decision making by, for example, using mobile apps and wearables that may help empower people to actively participate in their treatment and health monitoring. While the term "participatory health informatics" (PHI) has emerged in literature to describe these activities, along with the use of social media for health purposes, the scope of the research field of PHI is not yet well defined.

Objective: This article proposes a preliminary definition of PHI and defines the scope of the field.

Personalized Precision Medicine for Health Care Professionals: Development of a Competency Framework.

Background: Personalized precision medicine represents a paradigm shift and a new reality for the health care system in Spain, with training being fundamental for its full implementation and application in clinical practice. In this sense, health care professionals face educational challenges related to the acquisition of competencies to perform their professional practice optimally and efficiently in this new environment. The definition of competencies for health care professionals provides a clear guide on the level of knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to adequately carry out their professional practice.

Towards the European Health Data Space (EHDS) ecosystem: A survey research on future health data scenarios.

Objective: The European Health Data Space (EHDS) aims to provide better exchange and expand access to health data across Europe. In this way, the EHDS will support healthcare delivery (known as the "primary use of data") and facilitate access to health data for research and policy-making purposes (known as the "secondary use of data"). To achieve this goal, we need to build the required ecosystem of the EHDS with all healthcare stakeholders.

Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics: Second Revision.

Background: The purpose of educational recommendations is to assist in establishing courses and programs in a discipline, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations, and to support international initiatives for collaboration and sharing of courseware. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has published two versions of its international recommendations in biomedical and health informatics (BMHI) education, initially in 2000 and revised in 2010. Given the recent changes to the science, technology, the needs of the healthcare systems, and the workforce of BMHI, a revision of the recommendations is necessary.

Relationship between Prenatal or Postnatal Exposure to Pesticides and Obesity: A Systematic Review.

In recent years, the worldwide prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults and children has dramatically increased. The conventional model regarding the onset of obesity is based on an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure. However, other possible environmental factors involved, such as the exposure to chemicals like pesticides, cannot be discarded.

Relationship between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Pesticides: A Systematic Review of Human and Preclinical Models.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex set of neurodevelopmental pathologies characterized by impoverished social and communicative abilities and stereotyped behaviors. Although its genetic basis is unquestionable, the involvement of environmental factors such as exposure to pesticides has also been proposed. Despite the systematic analyses of this relationship in humans, there are no specific reviews including both human and preclinical models.

The International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI): 2020 Report.

Objectives: To summarize the major activities of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) in the 2020 time period and to welcome its 2020 Class of Fellows.

Method: Report from the members of the Academy's Board.

Results: Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, both Plenary meetings in 2020 had to be organized as virtual meetings.

International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI): Strategy and Focus Areas, 1st Version.

Background: The International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) is the Academy of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). As an international forum for peers in biomedical and health informatics, the Academy shall play an important role in exchanging knowledge, providing education and training, and producing policy documents.

Objectives: A major priority of the Academy's activities in its inaugural phase was to define its strategy and focus areas in accordance with its objectives and to prioritize the Academy's work, which can then be transferred to respective taskforces.

Progress in Characterizing the Human Exposome: a Key Step for Precision Medicine.

Objective: Most diseases result from the complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors. The exposome can be defined as a systematic approach to acquire large data sets corresponding to environmental exposures of an individual along her/ his life. The objective of this contribution is to raise awareness within the health informatics community about the importance of dealing with data related to the contribution of environmental factors to individual health, particularly in the context of precision medicine informatics.

The International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI): IMIAs Academy is Now Established and on Track.

Objectives: To summarize the major activities of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) from 2018 until 2019, and to provide an outline of actions planned for 2020.

Method: Reporting about these activities and actions by the members of the Academy's first Board.

Results: Academy bylaws were accepted by the Academy Plenary and the IMIA General Assembly on August 25th, 2019 and August 26th, 2019, respectively.

An Archetype Query Language interpreter into MongoDB: Managing NoSQL standardized Electronic Health Record extracts systems.

The fast development of today's healthcare and the need to extract new medical knowledge from exponentially-growing volumes of standardized Electronic Health Records data, as required by studies in Precision Medicine, brings up a challenge that may probably only be addressed using NoSQL DBMSs, due to the non-optimal performance of traditional relational DBMSs on standardized data; and these database systems operated by semantic archetype-based query languages, because of the expected generalized extension of standardized EHR systems. An AQL into MongoDB interpreter has been developed to its first version. It translates system-independent AQL queries posed on ISO/EN 13606 standardized EHR extracts into the NoSQL MongoDB query language.

TASoMe: Validating a Framework to Generate Evidence About Health Outcomes from Social Media Use.

Research surrounding social media's impact on patient-reported health outcomes continues to emerge. However, an ongoing challenge for researchers is generating valid and reliable evidence that draws upon rigorous frameworks. This manuscript details the development and refinement of a framework that defines criteria and methods for generating and evaluating evidence about social media use in chronic disease management; the Therapeutic Affordances of Social Media (TASoMe) framework.

The Australian Health Informatics Competencies Framework and Its Role in the Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) Program.

The Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) program consists of an online exam, which aims to test whether a candidate has the knowledge and skills that are identified in the competencies framework to perform as a health informatics professional. The CHIA Health Informatics Competencies Framework provides the context in which the questions for the exam have been developed. The core competencies for health informatics that are tested in the exam have been developed with reference to similar programs by the American Medical Informatics Association, the International Medical Informatics Association and COACH, Canada's Health Informatics Association, and builds on the previous work done by the Australian Health Informatics Education Council.

Biomedical Informatics and the Digital Component of the Exposome.

Biomedical informatics plays a key role in the development of precision medicine and other new technology-enabled health disciplines. In this context, the exposome (defined as the whole set of exposures on an individual) has become a relevant topic. Although most of the research work in the exposome area has been conducted around the physical and chemical world, we sustain that in an increasingly digitised world more attention should be paid to the digital component of the exposome derived from the interactions of individuals with the digital world.

Characterising the Scope of Exposome Research: A Generalisable Approach.

Scientific advancement and the development of new research fields bring uncertainties about what the current topics of research emphasis are and thus, what new knowledge might need to be represented. The exposome is an example of one such new field for which these uncertainties exist. The exposome is the analogue to the genome, from an environmental exposure perspective; research on the exposome has gained momentum only since 2011.

Development and Validation of a Taxonomy for Characterizing Measurements in Health Self-Quantification.

Background: The use of wearable tools for health self-quantification (SQ) introduces new ways of thinking about one's body and about how to achieve desired health outcomes. Measurements from individuals, such as heart rate, respiratory volume, skin temperature, sleep, mood, blood pressure, food consumed, and quality of surrounding air can be acquired, quantified, and aggregated in a holistic way that has never been possible before. However, health SQ still lacks a formal common language or taxonomy for describing these kinds of measurements.

Research Strategies for Biomedical and Health Informatics. Some Thought-provoking and Critical Proposals to Encourage Scientific Debate on the Nature of Good Research in Medical Informatics.

Background: Medical informatics, or biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), has become an established scientific discipline. In all such disciplines there is a certain inertia to persist in focusing on well-established research areas and to hold on to well-known research methodologies rather than adopting new ones, which may be more appropriate.

Objectives: To search for answers to the following questions: What are research fields in informatics, which are not being currently adequately addressed, and which methodological approaches might be insufficiently used? Do we know about reasons? What could be consequences of change for research and for education?

Methods: Outstanding informatics scientists were invited to three panel sessions on this topic in leading international conferences (MIE 2015, Medinfo 2015, HEC 2016) in order to get their answers to these questions.

Person-generated Data in Self-quantification. A Health Informatics Research Program.

Objectives: The availability of internet-connected mobile, wearable and ambient consumer technologies, direct-to-consumer e-services and peer-to-peer social media sites far outstrips evidence about the efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy of using them in healthcare applications. The aim of this paper is to describe one approach to build a program of health informatics research, so as to generate rich and robust evidence about health data and information processing in self-quantification and associated healthcare and health outcomes.

Methods: The paper summarises relevant health informatics research approaches in the literature and presents an example of developing a program of research in the Health and Biomedical Informatics Centre (HaBIC) at the University of Melbourne.

The Genomic Medicine Game.

With advancements in genomics technology, health care has been improving and new paradigms of medicine such as genomic medicine have evolved. The education of clinicians, researchers and students to face the challenges posed by these new approaches, however, has been often lagging behind. From this the Genomic Medicine Game, an educational tool, was created for the purpose of conceptualizing the key components of Genomic Medicine.

Refining the Concepts of Self-quantification Needed for Health Self-management. A Thematic Literature Review.

Background: Questions like 'How is your health? How are you feeling? How have you been?' now can be answered in a different way due to innovative health self-quantification apps and devices. These apps and devices generate data that enable individuals to be informed and more responsible about their own health.

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to review studies on health SQ, firstly, exploring the concepts that are associated with the users' interaction with and around data for managing health; and secondly, the potential benefits and challenges that are associated with the use of such data to maintain or promote health, as well as their impact on the users' certainty or confidence in taking effective actions upon such data.