Evolution of Interdisciplinarity in Medical Informatics in Europe: Patterns from Intertwining Histories

The IMIA History project book we are co-editing with colleagues from the IMIA History Working Group includes histories of early contributions to medical and healthcare informatics, as described by a sample of pioneers and experts, detailing how their own ideas developed from their work on various topics in the field at the beginnings of their contributions to the field. Its contents serve as a preliminary guide for meta-analyses of how the different contributors state their personal interdisciplinary origins from today's perspectives. In this short article we provide a brief preview of how an analysis of disciplinary characteristics from individual histories can begin to shed light on processes of interdisciplinary evolution of medical informatics in Europe.