Journal List > Healthc Inform Res > v.18(4) > 1075619

Chang: Looking Back, Looking Forward
As 2012 draws to an end, we are excited by the fact that the busyness that we've seen here publishing this issue will soon be accompanied by a sense of deep joy. Not many have the privilege of knowing that the work they do can help and inspire those with similar passions, and we consider ourselves especially fortunate to contribute to a community of likeminded people.
Finally, Issue 4 of Volume 18 is now officially published, ready to be read. Whether it be an academic journal or a novel, we all have different ways of approaching a text. Some start with the table of contents, while others jump straight ahead to the parts that interest them. I personally enjoy reading a text by reading the preface first. I have always felt that only when I read the preface do I get to see the big picture of the text-what the author is trying to do and how he or she is planning to go about doing it. In a journal like ours, the editorial works like the preface, so I feel obligated to give a short introduction to the articles presented here.
This issue consists of eight articles-two reviews and six original research papers-that we hope will help you promote awareness of healthcare informatics as well as advance knowledge and application systems in healthcare fields. Two articles deal with clinical research support systems and what they have taught us about expert systems for diagnosis and sentence classifications. One article deals with bioinformatics, especially how to design and integrate a compact gene knowledge database. The remaining five, though touching upon a variety of topics in healthcare information systems, can be said to be articles on social factors, policies, and behavioral approaches; specifically, they concern topics such as the mobile environment, u-Health, organizational and individual barriers to information systems, user preference to monitors, and human factors in engineering.
The collection of topics here is only one example of the gradual rise in interest in social factors, policy, and behavioral informatics. This trend is not only a consequence of recent focus on behavioral approaches (such as behavioral economics and behavioral politics) but is also an indicator of the growing importance of health attitude and behavior and environmental factors in one's health. Now more than ever, people across the disciplines are realizing that behavior is a key entity in problem solving. User behavior in healthcare informatics plays an important role in promoting the appropriate use of information technologies in order to improve health and healthcare. Clearly, there is a growing need for researchers who specialize in the use of technologies by patients and healthcare providers and in the design, implementation, and evaluation of behavior change interventions delivered through advanced technologies. We are glad to know that our journal is an attempt to address this need and its implications.
This issue is yet another step in the right direction. It has been three years since we transformed the Journal of Korean Society of Medical Informatics (JKOSMI) into Healthcare Informatics Research (HIR), and a lot has happened since then. In its first year, 2010, it was indexed in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog; in its second year, in PubMed Central; and this year, we finished our application for SCOPUS. We're also happy to share that this year, HIR was recognized as the best academic journal in Korea by The Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies. Now, our next goal is to apply for Science Citation Index (SCI) next year. We look back and feel pride in our growth in the last three years, and we look forward to growing even further in the next three.
These achievements would not have been possible without you. As a reader and as a member of KOSMI, you are not a mere witness to this growth but a participant in it, and we hope that you feel as proud as we do in how far we've come. We also hope that you join us in our next step. To become an SCI journal, we need more high-quality articles and more diversity in our contributors. You can help by contributing your own work and helping us publicize at home and abroad. It is our hope that next year, when we look back on 2013, we can take joy not only in what we've achieved but also in how we achieved it together.
May your 2013 be filled with joys for you and your family.
hir-18-235-g001
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