Bioinformatics and Clinical Informatics: The Imperative to Collaborate

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Abstract
In this issue, Perry Miller and Russ Altman review the experiences at Yale and Stanford that have led to a convergence and cross-pollination between clinical informatics and bioinformatics at those institutions. A related convergence is revealed by a MEDLINE search for the string “informatics” in the last five months. Of 346 publications, 175 were in the area of genomics and not clinical applications. Concurrently, there has been much discussion within the informatics community about the dual nature of the research agenda (and, not coincidentally, the funding opportunities) as it pertains to clinical applications and fundamental biological research.1,2 Informal discussions with investigators in bioinformatics and clinical informatics, however, are tinged with concern that these two disciplines in biomedical informatics will diverge or at least that the two investigator communities are not collaborating sufficiently.