Chapter 1 Introduction ALEX A.T. BUL RICKY K. TAIRA, AND HOOSHANG KANGARLOO M edical imaging informatics is the rapidly evolving field that combines biomedical informatics and imaging, developing and adapting core meth ods in informatics to improve the usage and application of imaging in healthcare; and to derive new knowledge from imaging studies. This chapter intro duces the ideas and motivation behind medical imaging informatics. Starting with an illustration of the importance of imaging in today's patient care, we demonstrate imaging informatics' potential in enhancing clinical care and biomedical research From this perspective, we provide an example of how different aspects of medical imaging informatics can impact the process of selecting an imaging protocol. To help readers appreciate this growing discipline, a brief history is given of different efforts that have contributed to its development over several decades, leading to its current challenges What is Medical Imaging Informatics? Two revolutions have changed the nature of medicine and research: medical imaging and biomedical informatics. First, medical imaging has become an invaluable tool in modern healthcare, often providing the only in vivo means of studying disease and the human condition. Through the advances made across different imaging modalities majors insights into a range of medical conditions have come about, elucidating mat ters of structure and function. Second, the study of biomedical informatics concerns itself with the development and adaptation of techniques from engineering, computer science,and other fields to the creation and management of medical data and knowl edge. Biomedical informatics is transforming the manner by which we deal and think with (large amounts of) electronic clinical data. Medical imaging informatics is the discipline that stands at the intersection of biomedical informatics and imaging, bridg ing the two areas to further our comprehension of disease processes through the unique lens of imaging and from this understanding, improve clinical care Beyond the obvious differences between images and other forms of medical data, the very nature of medical imaging set profound challenges in automated understanding and management. While humans can learn to perceive patterns in an image -much as a radiologist is trained -the nuances of deriving knowledge from an image still defy the best algorithms, even with the significant strides made in image processing and computer vision. Imaging informatics research concerns itself with the full spectrum of low-level concepts(e.., image standardization; signal and image processing) to higher-level abstractions(e.., associating semantic meaning to a region in an image visualization and fusion of images)and ultimately, applications and the derivation of new knowledge from imaging. Notably, medical imaging informatics addresses not only the images themselves, but encompasses the associated data to understand the context of the imaging study: to document observations; and to correlate and reach new conclusions about a disease and the course of a medical problem. AA.T d R.K. Taira(eds ) Medical Imaging Informatics, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0385-3_1. Springer Science Business Media, LLC 2010A.A.T. Bui and R.K. Taira (eds.), Medical Imaging Informatics, 3 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0385-3_1, © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2010 Chapter 1 Introduction ALEX A.T. BUI, RICKY K. TAIRA, AND HOOSHANG KANGARLOO edical imaging informatics is the rapidly evolving field that combines biomedical informatics and imaging, developing and adapting core meth￾ods in informatics to improve the usage and application of imaging in healthcare; and to derive new knowledge from imaging studies. This chapter intro￾duces the ideas and motivation behind medical imaging informatics. Starting with an illustration of the importance of imaging in today’s patient care, we demonstrate imaging informatics’ potential in enhancing clinical care and biomedical research. From this perspective, we provide an example of how different aspects of medical imaging informatics can impact the process of selecting an imaging protocol. To help readers appreciate this growing discipline, a brief history is given of different efforts that have contributed to its development over several decades, leading to its current challenges. What is Medical Imaging Informatics? Two revolutions have changed the nature of medicine and research: medical imaging and biomedical informatics. First, medical imaging has become an invaluable tool in modern healthcare, often providing the only in vivo means of studying disease and the human condition. Through the advances made across different imaging modalities, majors insights into a range of medical conditions have come about, elucidating mat￾ters of structure and function. Second, the study of biomedical informatics concerns itself with the development and adaptation of techniques from engineering, computer science, and other fields to the creation and management of medical data and knowl￾edge. Biomedical informatics is transforming the manner by which we deal and think with (large amounts of) electronic clinical data. Medical imaging informatics is the discipline that stands at the intersection of biomedical informatics and imaging, bridg￾ing the two areas to further our comprehension of disease processes through the unique lens of imaging; and from this understanding, improve clinical care. Beyond the obvious differences between images and other forms of medical data, the very nature of medical imaging set profound challenges in automated understanding and management. While humans can learn to perceive patterns in an image – much as a radiologist is trained – the nuances of deriving knowledge from an image still defy the best algorithms, even with the significant strides made in image processing and computer vision. Imaging informatics research concerns itself with the full spectrum of low-level concepts (e.g., image standardization; signal and image processing) to higher-level abstractions (e.g., associating semantic meaning to a region in an image; visualization and fusion of images) and ultimately, applications and the derivation of new knowledge from imaging. Notably, medical imaging informatics addresses not only the images themselves, but encompasses the associated data to understand the context of the imaging study; to document observations; and to correlate and reach new conclusions about a disease and the course of a medical problem. M