Towards health informatics 3.0. Editorial

To provide an editorial introduction to the 2011 IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics with an overview of its contents and contributors.

A brief overview of the main theme, and an outline of the purposes, contents, format, and acknowledgment of contributions for the 2011 IMIA Yearbook.

This 2011 issue of the IMIA Yearbook highlights important developments in the development of Web 3.0 capabilities that are increasing in Health Informatics, impacting the activities in research, education and practice in this interdisciplinary field. There has been steady progress towards introducing semantics into informatics systems through more sophisticated representations of knowledge in their underlying information. Health Informatics 3.0 capabilities are identified from the recent literature, illustrated by selected papers published during the past 12 months, and articles reported by IMIA Working Groups.

Surveys of the main research sub-fields in biomedical informatics in the Yearbook provide an overview of progress and current challenges across the spectrum of the discipline, focusing on Web 3.0 challenges and opportunities.