Summary
Objective: To discuss international aspects as they relate to the convergence of disciplines
in health informatics.
Method: A group of international experts was invited at a symposium to present and discuss
their perspectives on this topic. These have been collated in a single manuscript.
Results and Conclusions: Significant challenges, as well as opportunities, appear when cumulating the intrinsic
multidisciplinary nature of health informatics interventions with the diversity of
contexts at the global level, in particular when considered in the perspective of
a confluence, i.e., the mixing of different waters and their merging into a new, stronger
entity. Health informatics experts reflect on key issues such as collaborative software
development and distributed knowledge sourcing, social media and mobile technologies,
the evolutions of the discipline from an historical perspective, as well as examples
of challenges for implementing ubiquitous healthcare or for supporting disaster situations
when infrastructures get disrupted.
Keywords
Biomedical informatics - health informatics - medical informatics - international
perspectives - global health informatics
