title: Managing interoperability and complexity in health systems.
abstract: In recent years, we have witnessed substantial progress in the use of clinical informatics systems to support clinicians during episodes of care, manage specialised domain knowledge, perform complex clinical data analysis and improve the management of health organisations' resources. However, the vision of fully integrated health information eco-systems, which provide relevant information and useful knowledge at the point-of-care, remains elusive. This journal Focus Theme reviews some of the enduring challenges of interoperability and complexity in clinical informatics systems. Furthermore, a range of approaches are proposed in order to address, harness and resolve some of the many remaining issues towards a greater integration of health information systems and extraction of useful or new knowledge from heterogeneous electronic data repositories.
authors.affiliation: Dr. Matt-Mouley Bouamrane, Institute of Health & Well-being, University of Glasgow, General Practice & Primary Care, 1 Horslethill Road , Glasgow G12 9LX, UK, E-mail: Matt-Mouley.Bouamrane@glasgow.ac.uk.
authors.forename: M-M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Bouamrane
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.forename: I N
authors.initials: IN
authors.lastname: Sarkar
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D007256:Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D039061:Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine; D018511:Systems Integration
keywords: Medical informatics; biological ontologies; classification; health information management; information storage and retrieval; knowledge bases; systematized nomenclature of medicine; systems integration