Fundamentals of Medical Informatics

Rationale

Due to the repositioning of medical-informatics research as a result of the abundance of practical IT opportunities, the influence of Medical Informatics on computer science and equally on other fields has diminished considerably. Many medical computer scientists also seem to neglect the opportunities offered by the progress in the Life Sciences, and remain far removed from basic research. This trend may be regarded as indicative for the current state of research in Medical Informatics, and may contribute to undermining fundamentally oriented research which has proved itself in the past, and which is necessary for the scientific future of Medical Informatics research. The goal of the proposed Exploratory Workshop is to consolidate and revitalise fundamental research in Medical Informatics by bringing together key researchers in Medical Informatics and related fields, such as Bioinformatics, Biomedical Engineering, and Statistics. Without a good solid scientific foundation, that is constantly being added and deepened, Medical Informatics may not be able to contribute to the scientific basis of medicine in a substantial way in the near future.

Timeliness

Until recently, clinical patient data have been stored in almost inaccessible paper form, hampering scientific use of this information. Furthermore, the IT infrastructure of hospitals consisted for more than 25 years only of a hospital-wide information system, storing administrative data and laboratory data. However, this infrastructure is currently being revolutionised by the introduction of electronic communication and clinical information systems in the wards. Similar developments are taking place in primary care. From a scientific point of view, these developments are extremely interesting, since it will create an environment that is better suited to medical-informatics research than ever before. Given the fact that Bioinformatics has given a major impetus to fundamental research in the Life Sciences, Medical Informatics can also profit from this by carrying out complementary research within the context of medicine. This will provide new opportunities for testing fundamental principles of Medical Informatics. Hence, it now appears to be the appropriate time to reconsider the research directions in Medical Informatics, as the infrastructure to carry out that research will soon expand in university hospitals, and clinical applications of basic research in the Life Sciences are expected soon.

Format and Output of the Workshop

• The workshop lasts 2 days. There are some extra activities planned one day before the start of the workshop which are meant to learn knowing each other. The workshop will be different from a traditional workshop; e.g. it will not be fully filled with presentations (although there will be some). It will take place in an informal atmosphere.
• The ultimate aim of the workshop is to produce and publish a volume titled Fundamentals of Biomedical Informatics based on previous and current research of the participants. The workshop acts as a kick-off meeting for this undertaking.
• During the Exploratory Workshop much time will be devoted to deciding about what should be included in this volume. Editorial and writing teams will also be put together.
• It is expected that much can in be based on existing papers of the participants. Before the start of the workshop, every participant will be asked to submit relevant work. The papers will be distributed at the workshop.
• In order to make sure that the workshop is effective, three to four working groups will be formed.
• The workshop participants have significant influence on the actual content and structure of the workshop; the organisers will come up with initial suggestions.

Workshop Themes and Topics

The list below is neither meant to be exhaustive nor are themes and topics meant to be mutually exclusive.

Modelling in Biomedicine

• Causal modelling (qualitative models of cause-effect relationships)
• Logical formalisation of biomedical knowledge, clinical guidelines, and so on
• Formalisation of biomedical terminology
• Model-based reasoning (in particular model-based diagnosis using abduction or consistency checking)
• Bayesian modelling (development of Bayesian networks based on biomedical expert knowledge)
• Mathematical modelling and simulation (development of mathematical simulation models of cells, e.g. nerve cells, and organs, e.g. the heart and vessels)

Data-mining, machine learning in Biomedicine

• Learning of causal knowledge
• Use of genetic algorithms in model and feature selection
• Subgroup discovery
• Learning temporal knowledge from data
• Bayesian classifiers
• Inductive logic programming
• Classification structure learning

Bioinformatics in Medicine

• Machine learning and Bioinformatics
• Statistics and Bioinformatics
• Mathematical models of Biomolecules
• Information retrieval in Bioinformatics
• Bayesian models and Bioinformatics
• Neural networks and pattern recognition and Bioinformatics
• Rough set theory and Bioinformatics

Final list of participants

Ameen Abu-Hanna, University of Amsterdam/AMC, Netherlands
Riccardo Bellazzi, University of Pavia, Italy
Gregory Cooper, University of Pitssburgh, USA
Marie-Odile Cordier, IRISA, Lyon, France
Luc Dehaspe, PharmaDM, Belgium
Linda van der Gaag, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Dragan Gamberger, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Croatia
Peter Hammond, University College London, UK
Pedro Larranaga, University of the Basque Country, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
Nada Lavrac, Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Peter Lucas, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands
Jan Komorowski, Uppsala University, Sweden
Mar Marcos, Universitat Jaume I, Castellon, Spain
Lucila Ohno-Machado, Harvard University, USA
Niels Peek, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Linda Peelen, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Jose Pena, University of Aalborg, Denmark
Luc De Raedt, University of Freiburg, Germany
Danielle Sent, Utrecht University, Netherlands

For more information about the workshop please contact one of the organisers:

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Peter Lucas  Inst. for Computer and Information Sciences  University of Nijmegen  Toernooiveld 1  6525 ED Nijmegen  The Netherlands  Telephone: +31 24 3652611  Fax: +31 24 3653366  peterl AT ru.nl

Nada Lavrac  Dept. of Intelligent Systems  Jozef Stafan Institute  Jamova 39  1000 Ljubljana  Slovenia  Telephone: +386 14773272  Fax: +386 1425103  Nada.Lavrac@ijs.si

Ameen Abu-Hanna Dept. of Medical Inform., AMC  University of Amsterdam  Meibergdreef 15  1105 AZ Amsterdam  The Netherlands  Telephone: +31 20 5664511  Fax : +31 20 6912432  A.Abu-Hanna@amc.uva.nl