AMIA 2021 Annual Symposium Call For Participation

Each submission at the AMIA 2021 Annual Symposium, regardless of the type, will require one learning objective as part of the ScholarOne submission.

AMIA is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education to physicians. AMIA also provides Nursing Continuing Education (CE) credits. As an accredited provider, AMIA must design our activities to inspire change. That change may be a difference in knowledge/competence, performance, or inpatient outcomes. Educational design in this environment includes creating “outcomes-based learning objectives.” Creators of content should ask themselves, “What do I want the learner to be able to do, or to do better, after participating in my session?”

To write a good learning objective (LO), define the desired outcome of your presentation. Perform a needs assessment: what knowledge gap is your presentation going to fill? Then write the LO to address the gap you just identified.

Examples of well-written learning objectives:

After participating in this session, the learner should be better able to:

• Understand the current issues in drug-allergy alerting systems, including high alert rate and low alert sensitivity, and be able to discuss and recommend several approaches to reducing drug-allergy alert burden in the electronic health records systems.
• Learn challenges and possible solutions in creating and maintaining data elements for electronic health record systems across different clinical settings.
• Learn the quality of clinical documents generated by speech recognition technology and understand errors in dictated clinical documents at different processing stages and their potential impact in patient care.
• Formulate an approach to adoption of health information technology for the small physician group practice. (From the AMA)

Examples of poorly-written learning objectives:

After participating in this session, the learner should be better able to:

• Define the healthcare protocol for the treatment and prevention of Stage III and IV pressure ulcers and apply to your own practice [Too many verbs; can break it into: 1) Define the healthcare protocol for the treatment of Stage III and IV pressure ulcers; 2) Define the healthcare protocol for the prevention of Stage III and IV pressure ulcers; and 3) Apply this knowledge to their own practice.] (From the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care)
• Explain and discuss current initiatives and effective modalities to prevent incidence of complications such as infection or wrong-sided block. [This is a teaching objective. A learning objective on the same topic would be: “Prevent incidence of complications such as infection or wrong-sided block using current initiatives and effective modalities.”] (From Winthrop University Hospital)
• Become familiar with common eye problems. [The outcome is not measurable, there is no action the learner can take, and there is no context regarding the patient’s condition. Better LO: Screen for eye conditions commonly associated with type 2 diabetes.] (From the AAFP)

The AMIA 2021 Annual Symposium will consider seven types of submissions: (1) Papers; (2) Student Papers; (3) Podium Abstracts; (4) Posters; (5) Panels; (6) Systems Demonstrations; and (7) Workshops. The general requirements for each type are listed here.

All submissions must conform to the format and presentation requirements described herein. Specific file formatting requirements as well as an example template are given below in the submission instructions section. Each submission should have up to three associated keywords to help in the selection of well-matched reviewers as well as organization of meeting sessions.

IMPORTANT! Deviation from the prescribed format, especially the number of pages and modifications of template margins or font sizes, may result in rejection of the submission without review. Except for podium abstracts, submitted work must be original and not previously published.

The same presentation content cannot be submitted simultaneously as different presentation types (i.e., it cannot be submitted as both a poster and as a podium abstract).

Papers

Papers from all areas of biomedical informatics will be considered, with particular emphasis on those that align with the content themes for the AMIA 2021 Annual Symposium. Authors of accepted papers will have 18 minutes to present their work at the symposium including any question and answer period.

Pre-print Policy: Papers must not be in press or under consideration for presentation or publication elsewhere. However, authors retain the right to make a pre-print version of the paper available on recognized preprint servers (e.g., bioRxiv, medRxiv, PeerJ preprints, etc.) or personal/employer websites prior to acceptance for publication.

Papers must be formatted to be 5-10 pages (including all tables, figures, references, and acknowledgements (U.S. Letter; 8.5 x 11 inch) in length and include:

• The names, academic degree(s), affiliations, and locations (city, state, and country, if international) of all authors;
• An abstract of 125-150 words summarizing the submission, which should also be entered into a text box in Step 2 of the online submission form;
• Optional illustrations (figures or tables);
• References, if applicable.

Student Papers

Students are invited to submit papers that describe complete or nearly complete research or development efforts in informatics that was primarily carried out by the student. All designated student papers follow paper format requirements and will first be reviewed through the standard review process, along with all other submitted papers. Student papers that are accepted will be presented in a regular paper session and included in the Annual Symposium Proceedings.

Papers can only be submitted as a student paper or a regular paper, not both.

In addition, all accepted student papers will be referred to the Student Paper Advisory Committee (SPAC) for consideration for  the Student Paper Competition. Eight student papers will be selected by the SPAC as finalists for the award competition and these eight papers will be presented at a special session. The eight finalist papers will be presented twice during the symposium. It is up to the submitting student to ensure that their paper is correctly identified as a student paper proposal.

Individuals, who as of March 1, 2021, are enrolled in a degree granting program or in an academic program, such as a medical residency or a post-doctoral fellowship, are eligible to enter a paper into the Student Paper Competition. Work performed as part of a large, collaborative effort is acceptable; however, the student paper will be judged on the student’s specific contributions to the project, which must be clearly delineated. Only individual students, not groups, may submit papers for consideration in the Student Paper Competition. Preparation of a manuscript must be entirely the work of the student, and single authorship is strongly encouraged. Co-authorship is usually limited to the student’s primary advisor. Entries from international students are encouraged. Papers submitted for consideration in the Student Paper Competition must adhere to the same requirements as described in the Papers category and, in addition, student authors must provide:

• The name and address of the training program;
• Clear identification of the primary advisor of the student submitting the paper;
• All co-authors and a description of that particular author's contribution to the work;
• An attestation of the student's contribution to the manuscript with respect to the following items: (a) The text of the manuscript itself; (b) The data collected for any analysis; (c) The actual data analysis; (d) The review of the literature; (e) If a system was developed, the role of the student in the coding/development of the system; and (f) The evaluation of the results and the formation of the conclusion;
• The student will be asked to upload a PDF of the attestation letter signed by their primary advisor confirming items a-f above.

Podium Abstracts

The podium abstract format allows for the presentation of cutting-edge unpublished research that the author wishes to reserve publication rights for future consideration or outstanding work previously published in a peer-reviewed journal. Priority will be given to previously unpublished work. Authors of accepted podium abstracts will have up to 18 minutes to present their work at the symposium including any questions and discussion.

Abstracts will not be indexed in MEDLINE, enabling authors to submit their best work that is destined for future journal publication. Contributions may also consist of abstracts based on work published in peer-reviewed journals in the last year (i.e., publication after March 2019); however, works published as proceedings for other conferences will not be accepted. Citation of the previous work is required.

Submissions must be submitted as a two-page (including all tables, figures, references, and acknowledgements) (U.S. Letter; 8.5 x 11 inch) document and include:

• The names, academic degree(s), affiliations, and locations (city, state, and country, if international) of all authors;
  • A structured abstract must be submitted that includes the following sections:
  • Introduction – A short background and objective(s) of the study;
  • Methods – Design, setting (if appropriate), patients or participants (if appropriate), interventions (if appropriate), and main outcome measurement;
  • Results – Key findings;
  • Discussion – Key Conclusions with direct reference to the foundational advancement or biomedical application of the work;
  • Optional illustrations (figures or tables);
  • References.

All podium abstract submissions must have a brief (50-75 words) abstract. The abstract paragraph does NOT have to be part of the document but must be entered on the submission website in the Abstract box in Step 2 of the online submission form.

Posters

Posters are the preferred format for presenting preliminary research or results of small-scale studies, illustrating and discussing innovative systems and services, describing experimental and in-practice projects and programs, reporting experiences with educational programs, and other dimensions of biomedical and health informatics. The poster sessions have been an increasingly vibrant and popular component of the symposium, offering direct access to the authors in a way not possible through podium presentations. Each accepted poster is displayed during one of the 90-minute poster sessions at the symposium. At least one author must be present at the poster session.

An individual may be a first author of only one submission for a poster presentation. Posters must reflect new work, and not reflect work that is in press or previously published elsewhere.

Your uploaded poster manuscript file must be submitted as a one-page (including all tables, figures, references, and acknowledgements) (U.S. Letter; 8.5 x 11 inch) document and include:

• The names, academic degree(s), affiliations, and locations (city, state, and country, if international) of all authors.
• A description of the problem addressed and specific purposes of the system, service, or project; or, in the case of original research, an overview of the methodology, evaluation results, and conclusions
• Optional illustrations (figures or tables), which must fit in the one-page limit
• References, if applicable

All poster submissions must have a brief (50-75 words) abstract. The abstract paragraph does NOT have to be part of the document but must be entered on the submission website in the Abstract box in Step 2. (Please DO NOT copy and paste the entire one-page document into that box).

Panels 

Panel sessions are designed to present an integrated set of perspectives or experience on a current topic in clinical research informatics. Panel topics may be on a specific aspect of theory, application, policy, trends, or experience pertaining to any aspect of clinical research informatics, or may provide interdisciplinary viewpoints that cut across traditional themes. Panel submissions and final presentations should demonstrate collective reflection and integration of the content presented by each of the panelists, or offer engaged forms of dialogue and interaction between panelists and audience. Scholarly debate among presenters is encouraged, as are panels that incorporate science, practice, and policy themes to improve the conduct of clinical and translational research. Panels should be limited to four participants and a moderator, and should be timed to allow one-third to one-half of the session for audience participation. Panel sessions are 90-minutes. An individual may be the primary organizer of only one panel and may not participate on more than two panels total.

The uploaded panel manuscript file must not exceed a maximum of three pages (including all tables, figures, references, and acknowledgements) (U.S. Letter; 8.5 x 11 inch) and include:

• The names, academic degree(s), affiliations, and locations (city, state, and country, if international) of the panel organizer and all participants;
• An abstract of 150 words, describing the panel and its learning objectives, which should also be entered into a text box at the beginning of the online form to be used in the online program;
• A general description of the panel and the issue(s) that will be examined and a brief description of each panelist's presentation;
• An explanation why the topic of this panel is timely, urgent, needed, or attention grabbing is required with a discussion of anticipated audience;
• A list of discussion questions to enhance audience participation;
• A statement from the panel organizer that all participants have agreed to take part on the panel.

Systems Demonstrations

Systems demonstrations illustrate one or more aspects of a leading-edge system that is in use, under development, or at a testing or prototype stage. Each demonstration is 30 minutes long, including any questions and discussion.

Your uploaded systems demonstration manuscript file must be submitted as a one-page (including all tables, figures, references, and acknowledgements) (U.S. Letter; 8.5 x 11 inch) document and must include:

• The names, academic degree(s), affiliations, and locations (city, state, and country, if international) of all presenters;
• An abstract of 125 words summarizing the proposal, which will also be entered into a text box at the beginning of the online form to be used in the online program;
• A description of the specific purposes of the system, service, or project; the problems in health care practice, biomedicine, or research in informatics that it is designed to address; and the purpose or features of the system, service, or project that make it particularly innovative;
• A statement of the degree to which the system or service has been deployed, as of the date of submitting the proposal.

The abstract paragraph does NOT have to be part of the document but must be entered on the submission website in the Abstract box in Step 2. ( Please DO NOT copy and paste the entire one-page document into that box).

Workshops

Half-day (3-hour) and full-day (6-hour) workshops are dedicated to in-depth treatment and collaborative discussion of special topics and interests of relevance to the broad biomedical informatics community.

These workshops are divided into two categories:

1. Instructional Workshops, focusing on knowledge base and competency development by participants.
2. Collaborative Workshops, intended to support the creation and ongoing activities of communities-of-practice within AMIA.

Workshops should have no more than five participants.

Instructional Workshops are limited to three hours in length and should include a combination of didactic and interactive content delivery, as well as participant interaction. Such workshops should be designed to address the needs and interests of individuals at all levels of experience relative to the selected topic area(s) and be led by individuals with appropriate subject matter expertise. The SPC encourages proposals that will bring together individuals with similar or different roles in developing, implementing, or using informatics in practice, management, education, research, or policy. Further, the SPC seeks a balance between workshops that address essential core informatics theory and principles, with those that address practical applications, current issues, and emerging trends and developments in informatics, aligned with overall meeting themes.

Collaborative Workshops may be either three or six hours in length, and are intended to encourage participation and collaboration using mechanisms such as discussion forums (e.g., shorter didactic presentations or panels followed by group discussions), research forums (e.g., presentations and discussions related to scientific advancements in a targeted areas of informatics innovation and practice), or a challenge/competition (e.g., individual or group submissions addressing a specific topic or scientific/technical challenge).

Individuals submitting either type of workshop proposal are encouraged to coordinate their activities and submissions with one or more AMIA Working Groups (WGs) as a means of raising the profile of WGs and their constituents at the Annual Symposium.

The SPC may ask individuals proposing thematically similar workshops in an independent manner to integrate their submissions prior to acceptance.

Individuals proposing workshops should be available to present on Saturday, October 30, or Sunday, October 31, and should confirm their availability on each of those days.

Workshop proposals must not exceed a maximum of four pages (U.S. Letter; 8.5 x 11 inch) in length and include the following information::

• A descriptive title for the workshop;
• An indication of the workshop type (i.e., instructional or collaborative) and suggested length for collaborative workshop proposals (3 or 6 hours);
• The names, academic degree(s), affiliations, and locations (city, state/province, and country, if international) of all workshop faculty;
• A summary of 250 to 300 words that describes the content of the workshop;
• An outline of topics to be covered and description of interactive components of the workshop;
• Specific educational objectives or outcomes that participants can expect to achieve
• A description of who should attend (e.g., clinicians, educators, leaders in healthcare or other organizations, researchers, policy makers, IT professionals);
• A description of prerequisites knowledge that participant should have, if any
• Indicate if the workshop instructional level is introductory, intermediate, or advance or a combination. In the latter case, list the percentage of each level;
• Experience of the workshop instructors/leaders in in the targeted content areas;
• If applicable, an indication of WG affiliations for the workshop (including the names of the individuals within each WG providing a formal endorsement of the submission);
• A list of conferences where this workshop has been previously presented, including past AMIA meetings.

The AMIA 2021 Annual Symposium will be primarily organized around the seven major areas of biomedical informatics, which reflect the spectrum of biomedical research and practice, from molecules to populations. Authors will be required to select one major thematic area of emphasis for their submission:

Academic Informatics: An opportunity for submissions demonstrating state-of-the-art approaches and best practices in education, training and workforce development. This thematic focus includes work addressing curricular and pedagogical challenges within academic informatics across a spectrum of education settings including high school, undergraduate, graduate level, post graduate, and continuing professional education. The goal is to support the growth of programs, professionals, and the learners they educate by solving challenges and strengthening the academic informatics community.

Cancer Informatics: Applications of informatics in the entire cancer care and research continuum including prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, recovery/survivorship and end-of-life care. Submissions may address problems ranging from molecules (e.g., molecular predictive or prognostic biomarkers) to populations (e.g., strategies for early detection in a population). Additional examples of relevant topics include, but are not limited to, informatics insights and applications to identify and reduce disparities in cancer outcomes, to monitor and improve care quality, to develop and train a cancer informatics workforce, to incorporate patient-generated data, and to facilitate cancer data interoperability and secondary use.

Clinical Informatics: The application of informatics and information technology to deliver healthcare services. It is also referred to as applied clinical informatics and operational informatics. AMIA considers informatics when used for healthcare delivery to be essentially the same regardless of the health professional group involved (whether dentist, pharmacist, physician, nurse, or other health professional). Clinical Informatics is concerned with information use in health care by clinicians. Clinical informatics includes a wide range of topics ranging from clinical decision support to visual images; from clinical documentation to provider order entry systems; and from system design to system implementation and adoption issues.

Clinical Research Informatics: The use of informatics in the discovery and management of new knowledge relating to health and disease. It includes management of information related to clinical trials and also involves informatics related to secondary research use of clinical data. Clinical research informatics and translational bioinformatics are the primary domains related to informatics activities to support translational research.

Consumer Health Informatics: Devoted to informatics focusing on multiple consumer or patient views. These include patient-focused informatics, health literacy and consumer education. The focus is on information structures and processes that empower consumers to manage their own health – for example health information literacy, consumer-friendly language, personal health records, mHealth, and Internet-based strategies and resources. The shift in this view of informatics analyzes consumers' needs for information; studies and implements methods for making information accessible to consumers; and models and integrates consumers' preferences into health information systems. Consumer informatics stands at the crossroads of other disciplines, such as nursing informatics, public health, health promotion, health education, library science, and communication science.

Public Health Informatics: Applications of informatics in areas of public or population health, including surveillance, prevention, preparedness, and health promotion. The scope of public health is broad, focusing on the health of people and communities where they live, learn, work and play. Informatics applied to public health can therefore take many forms, including interoperable information systems to analyze data for biosurveillance, inform outbreak management in a community, provide immunization decision support, evaluate public health programs, model the spread of disease, and create understanding into the epidemiology of disease.

Translational Bioinformatics: The development of storage, analytic, and interpretive methods to optimize the transformation of increasingly voluminous biomedical data, and genomic data, into proactive, predictive, preventive, and participatory health. Translational bioinformatics includes research on the development of novel techniques for the integration of biological and clinical data and the evolution of clinical informatics methodology to encompass biological observations. The end product of translational bioinformatics is newly found knowledge from these integrative efforts that can be disseminated to a variety of stakeholders, including biomedical scientists, clinicians, and patients.

The field of research and practice in biomedical informatics is as broad as the field of biomedicine and health care. Therefore, to facilitate the overall review process as well as support clustering of accepted submissions into meaningful sets, authors will be required to provide at least one, and up to three, keywords from the list below and up to five additional keywords that they feel best characterizes their work.

• Administrative Systems
• Advanced Disease
• Aging in Place
• Artificial Intelligence
• Bioinformatics
• Biomarkers
• Biosurveillance
• Cancer Genetics
• Cancer Prevention
• Causal Inference
• Chronic Care Management
• Clinical Decision Support
• Clinical Guidelines
• Change Management
• Computational Biology
• Controlled Terminologies, Ontologies, and Vocabularies
• COVID-19
• Curriculum Development
• Data Mining
• Data Analytics
• Data Science
• Data Sharing
• Deep Learning
• Delivering Health Information and Knowledge to the Public
• Diagnostic Systems
• Disease Models
• Diversity
• Drug Discoveries, Repurposing, and Side-effed Discovery
• Education and Training
• Educational Collaboration
• Evaluation
• Global Health
• Healthcare Quality
• Health Equity
• Human-computer Interaction
• Imaging Informatics
• Informatics Implementation
• Informatics Science
• Information Retrieval
• Information Visualization
• Internet of Things
• Interoperability and Health Information Exchange
• Knowledge Representation and Information Modeling
• Legal, Ethical, Social and Regulatory Issues
• Machine Learning
• Medical Racism
• Mobile Health
• Multimedia and Image Processing and Analysis
• Natural Language Processing
• Omics (genomics, metabolomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, etc.) and Integrative Analyses
• Patient / Person Generated Health Data (patient reported outcomes)
• Patient Engagement
• Patient Safety
• Personal Health Informatics
• Pharmacogenetics
• Phenomics and Phenome-wide Association Studies
• Precision Medicine
• Privacy and Security
• Qualitative Methods
• Real-World Data Value/Cost of Care
• Reproducibility
• Sequence Analysis
• Simulation of Complex Systems
• Social Media and Connected Health
• Standards
• Surveys and Needs Analysis
• Systems Biology
• Teaching Innovation
• Telemedicine
• Terminology Systems
• Tracking and Self-management Systems
• Transitions of Care
• Usability
• Ubiquitous Computing and Sensors
• User-centered Design Methods
• Workflow

The AMIA 2021 Annual Symposium submissions will be categorized as either: (1) foundational contributions to informatics methods (“Foundations”); (2) reports on the application of informatics in the context of health (“Applications”); or (3) discussions of policy topics influenced or impacted by informatics (“Policy”). Reflecting the often cross-cutting implications of informatics innovations, submissions may be categorized into multiple tracks simultaneously.

From the time that authors begin to prepare their papers, abstracts, or proposals, they should consider whether their principal results and insights would more aptly be presented as a foundational, applied, policy, or some combination therein.

Foundations

The Foundations track focuses on the conceptual and methodological advances that underpin the spectrum of biomedical informatics innovation. Contributions in this track should include work that presents progress in the generating, structuring, processing, managing, and analysis of biomedical and health information. Overall priority areas include the description and demonstration of methodologies that show promise in advancing the understanding and support of research and education in biological, clinical, and public health contexts.

Applications

The Applications track focuses on innovations in the design, technology, implementation, use, and evaluation of information systems and knowledge resources across the full spectrum of healthcare - in acute, ambulatory, and chronic care settings, public health departments, libraries, educational centers, and homes. Contributions to this track should emphasize applications that work in the real world to solve problems that impact or characterize health and well-being.

Policy

The Policy track focuses on informatics-relevant policies, policy recommendations, and policy evaluations, as well as the dependencies between informatics innovations and informatics policy. Priority will be given to those submissions that discuss informatics topics that may have either been influenced by policy decisions (e.g., Meaningful Use) or that may impact policy (e.g., 21st Century Cures). Contributions in this track should clearly identify policy implications and the role played by innovative informatics methodology.