title: Confluence of disciplines in health informatics: an international perspective.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To discuss international aspects as they relate to the convergence of disciplines in health informatics.
  
  
  METHODS
  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.
  
  
  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.
authors.affiliation: Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva University, Division of Medical Informatics, 24, rue Micheli-Du-Crest, 1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland. Antoine.Geissbuhler@hcuge.ch
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Geissbuhler
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Kulikowski
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ohno-Machado
authors.forename: H-A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Haux
mesh_terms: D001690:Biological Science Disciplines; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D014943:Global Health; D038622:Internationality; D008490:Medical Informatics; D056910:Republic of Korea; D061108:Social Media; D012984:Software; D017216:Telemedicine