By: Orin M. Goldblum, MD, Coordinator, AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group: Orin is a dermatologist practicing in Pittsburgh, PA and maintains an affiliation as Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In addition to his medical practice, he is Director of the eHealthRx Service for Healthcare Industries Research Companies, a pharmaceutical industry research consulting firm based in Santa Cruz, CA. An early adopter of handheld electronic prescribing, Orin also serves as a consultant to ePhysician, a company improving patient care and practice efficiencies through clinical handheld services. He is the Moderator of the Wireless Medical Applications listserv and General Discussions forum on PDA cortex. Last year, Orin published the first detailed evaluation of a handheld e-prescribing system appearing in a peer-reviewed medical journal. A member of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), he recently founded the new AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group. He is a 1981 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pittsburgh, PA, and trained in dermatology at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, MD. Orin resides in Pittsburgh with his wife Elaine and two sons, Alex and Michael.

Background

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) is a nonprofit membership organization of individuals, institutions, and corporations dedicated to developing and using information technologies to improve health care. The AMIA is the premier organization to advance discovery and innovation in the use of information in health and biomedicine. The mission of the AMIA is to advance the field by fostering innovation and scientific exchange, educating professionals and the public, and influencing decision and policy makers regarding the use of information in health and biomedicine.

The AMIA was formed in 1990 by the merger of three organizations-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). Membership in the AMIA consists of 3,200 physicians, nurses, computer and information scientists, biomedical engineers, medical librarians, and academic researchers and educators. AMIA is the official US representative organization to the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA).

Activities of the AMIA include the AMIA Annual Symposium, the AMIA Spring Congress, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), Working Groups and Special Interest Groups, public policy initiatives, the AMIA Resource Center and interorganizational collaboration.

AMIA Working Groups and Special Interest Groups

Besides providing outstanding, valuable membership benefits for individual members, one of the many goals of the AMIA is to foster the development and maintenance of working groups and special interest groups relevant to the needs of its members. The AMIA has a number of active Working Groups and Special Interest Groups dealing with specialized topics and areas within the field of medical informatics.

Working Groups serve as a mechanism for members who share interests on a particular topic to exchange information with colleagues and to help develop and organize positions, issues, white papers, programs, and other activities benefiting the informatics community. Working Groups each have their own online e-mail discussion lists in which key issues and developments in the field can be discussed by subscribers. Special Interest Groups also serve as a method for members to share their expertise, information and opinions, to mentor other members within a particular specialized area of medical informatics, and to develop a network of peers who share similar interests. Special Interest Groups also have their own e-mail discussion lists. The discussion lists are only available to members of the particular Working Groups or Special Interest Groups.

AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group

At the November 2001 AMIA Annual Symposium, held in Washington, DC, there was significant interest in the growing use of handheld and wireless computing in health care. A review of PDA & wireless technologies presented and discussed at the AMIA 2001 Annual Symposium was published on PDA cortex following the meeting. During the meeting, I mentioned the idea of a new AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group to Suzanne Bakken, RN, DNSc, who served as Chair of the Scientific Program Committee. She encouraged me to collect the required number of signatures from AMIA members attending the meeting who might be interested in such a new Special Interest Group.

With Suzanne's encouragement, and the assistance of many others with an interest in mobile computing, specifically, Parvati Dev, PhD, Larry Afrin, MD, Mari Stoddard, MLIS, and Scott Strayer, MD, we easily collected the required number of signatures for a new AMIA Special Interest Group. Shortly after the meeting, I submitted the petition for a new Mobile Computing Special Interest Group to the AMIA. Recently, the AMIA Working Group Steering Committee approved the establishment of this new Special Interest Group. I wish to thank both Karen Greenwood, AMIA Director of Member Services, and Mary Ellen Doran, AMIA Manager of Communications, for their assistance in helping to get this group started.

The March 15, 2002 issue of the AMIA Alert contained this announcement:

"The burgeoning adoption of mobile and wireless health care information technology tools can provide critically important access to disease, drug, treatment, evidence-based and patient information at the point-of-care. By establishing an organized network of mobile health care computing users, comprehensive information sources, educational resources, guidelines, protocols, research proposals and educational curricula on mobile and wireless health care computing technologies can be developed and disseminated. The AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group invites all interested AMIA members to join and participate in this newly formed SIG."

As mentioned on the AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group's home page, the Purposes of this group are:

Reasons for joining the AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group are mentioned in the following paragraph:

Significant importance is currently being focused on the needs for improved health outcomes, reduction of medical errors and health care cost containment. Overcoming these key health care challenges can be accomplished, in part, by the adoption of emerging mobile and wireless information technology tools, which can provide critically important access to disease, drug, treatment, evidence-based, and patient information at the point-of-care. By establishing an organized network of active mobile computing users, comprehensive information sources, educational resources, guidelines, protocols, research proposals and educational curricula on mobile and wireless technologies in health care can be developed and disseminated.

Mobile Computing Special Interest Group Plans for 2002-2003

Our first accomplishment is the establishment of mc-sig, the AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group's mailing list. Although we do not intend to compete with other mobile health care computing mailing lists, such as PDA Verticals' pdaMD.com, Dr. Michael Kramer's palm-med, PDA cortex, Dr. David Blair's Wireless Medical Applications, and many other popular mobile health care computing discussion lists, mc-sig is a list for members interested in communicating information and discussing topics with colleagues who share their interest in the use of mobile computing as a means to improve health care.

Although the AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group is still in its organizational stages, there are a number of future activities under consideration. With the enthusiastic interest and support of several leaders in the mobile health care computing community, the group has recently submitted a proposal for a panel discussion presentation on handheld computing in health care at the next AMIA Annual Symposium, to be held November 9-13, 2002, in San Antonio, Texas.

Other activities, projects and publications the AMIA Mobile Computing Special Interest Group will consider are the following:

Finally, I would like to invite all students and professionals who have interests in mobile computing in health care to join the American Medical Informatics Association and become involved in this exciting new Mobile Computing Special Interest Group.

Dr. Orin Goldblum can be reached via email.