The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), is an American non-profit organization dedicated to the development and application of biomedical and health informatics in the support of patient care, teaching, research, and health care administration.

History

AMIA is the official United States representative to the International Medical Informatics Association. It has grown to more than 5,000 members from 42 countries worldwide. Together, these members represent all basic, applied, and clinical interests in health care information technology. It publishes the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

AMIA is a professional scientific association that was formed by the merger of three organizations in 1988: the American Association for Medical Systems and Informatics (AAMSI); the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI); and the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC).

Founding

AMIA was founded in 1989 by the merger of three organizations:

• American Association for Medical Systems and Informatics
• American College of Medical Informatics
• Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care

Leadership

As a professional society, AMIA leadership includes member-leaders who are elected annually from the membership. Until 2004, AMIA was led by an elected president and chair of the Board of Directors, who worked closely with the organization's professional executive director. In 2004, AMIA created the role of a full-time, staff President and CEO, and changed the elected leadership role to chair of the board.

The first President and CEO of AMIA was Don E. Detmer. He was succeeded in July 2009 by Edward H. Shortliffe. In March 2012, he was succeeded by Kevin Fickenscher. In 2013, he was succeeded by Douglas B. Fridsma, who served until December, 2019.

Beginning in 2020, AMIA updated the leadership structure, changing the staff "President and CEO" role to "CEO," and the elected "Chair of the Board" back to the previously title of "President and Chair of the Board." The current President and chair of the Board is Dr. Patricia Dykes. The current CEO, Tanya Tolpegin, was appointed in 2021.

Membership

AMIA membership is open to individuals, institutions, and corporations. Members include physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, clinicians, health information technology professionals, computer and information scientists, biomedical engineers, consultants and industry representatives, medical librarians, academic researchers and educators, and advanced students pursuing a career in clinical informatics or health information technology.

Meetings and education

AMIA annually holds the following meetings:^[1]

• AMIA Annual Symposium
• The AMIA Joint Summit on Translational Science comprising:
  • AMIA Summit on Translational Bioinformatics
  • AMIA Summit on Clinical Research Informatics
• AMIA Clinical Informatics

Working and special interest groups

The association includes a number of special interest and working groups on a variety of issues important to its membership.