AMIA once again saw excellent meeting attendance with 2,518 gathered in San Francisco, representing the highest Symposium attendance thus far! For the first time, the Opening and Closing sessions and the Year in Review were streamed, and members can now access these recordings via the AMIA website.
As another year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on everything we’ve done over the last twelve months. 2024 has been an incredible year, full of great accomplishments and amazing results. Our recent Annual Symposium was no exception.
New! Symposium "On Demand"
I'm excited to announce a new initiative that expands access to our valuable Symposium content. Starting February 2025, we'll be offering 19 recorded sessions from our 2024 Symposium in three convenient formats:
- Audio-only: Free for AMIA members
- Synchronized voice with content slide: Available for purchase
- Presenter video with synchronized voice and content slides (most like the live event): Available for purchase
This program allows our entire community to benefit from insights shared at our recent Symposium. Whether you're looking to deepen your knowledge or revisit key presentations, these sessions offer a wealth of information from leading experts in our field.
For those who couldn't join us in person, this is also an excellent opportunity to experience the high-quality content AMIA meetings are known for. I encourage you to take advantage of this new offering and continue your professional growth with AMIA.
Other AMIA Symposium Highlights
- Celebrating Atul Butte, MD, Phd, FACMI, the 2024 Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence recipient.
- Recognizing the AMIA Leadership Awards for outstanding volunteer leadership and service to the association, field, and profession.
- The third annual National Burden Reduction Collaborative (NBRC) meeting sponsored by Nabla had a large focus on measuring documentation burden. The meeting included robust discussion on topics like patient-centered strategies to alleviate burden and the critical role of artificial intelligence (AI) in reducing documentation and administrative burden. Check out the official press release for additional details.
- New symposium morning Movement Session: Embodied Resourcing Thru Image Making session allowed attendees to wake up and feel ready to start their day.
- An off site escape room experience allowed attendees to come together for a little fun after a full day of learning.
We want to thank the 2024 Annual Symposium Program Committee. Education is one of the driving factors of attending Symposium. The high-caliber education offered at the conference is due to the hard work of the Scientific Planning Committee.
In addition, we extend a special thanks to AMIA’s corporate sponsors who are an integral part of our community. In particular, thank you to our AMIA 2024 Title Sponsor, Nabla, and our Premier Sponsors: Abridge, Clinical Architecture, Epic, and Suki AI.
Informatics Policy
National policy continues to be an organizational focus for AMIA. This year, AMIA’s policy team expanded engagement with federal administrative offices by increasing our comment response 125% and completing comprehensive updates to AMIA's Public Policy principles. We also engaged over 20 organizations in advocating for a dedicated Clinical Informatics federal job code and successfully led over 40 organizations to advocate for the improvement of the Health Informatics Specialist job code. Our inaugural virtual Hill Day also was a terrific re-introduction of AMIA to Capitol Hill.
AMIA Board of Director and Officer Election Results
Election results were announced at the State of Association. AMIA is thrilled to welcome Philip Payne, PhD, FACMI, as our next President/Chair-Elect. William Brown III, PhD, DrPH, MA, Arlene Chung, MD, MHA, MMCi, and Rachel Richesson, PhD, MPH, FACMI, were elected to the AMIA board of Directors for a second term (2025-2027). We thank the Nominating Committee for producing an outstanding slate and our members who participated in the recent election.
The following outgoing Board members were recognized for their service:
- Gretchen Purcell Jackson, MD, PhD (Immediate Past Chair)
- Kenrick Cato, PhD, RN, CPHIMS, FAAN (2022-2024)
AMIA State of the Association
We highlighted several additional, important AMIA organizational updates.
- The Membership Committee report demonstrating AMIA’s highest number of members (5,755) since before 2019.
- The Finance Committee report highlighting (1) a clean financial audit following AMIA’s migration to new financial software; (2) an updated Investment Policy Statement, ensuring robust investment strategies that are aligned with AMIA’s long-term goals; and (3) recent approval of a 2025 budget during the November Board meeting.
- The Governance Report, with a recap of recent governance changes including the Bylaws revisions, and approval of a streamlined organizational structure, which focused on the simplification of decision making, increased transparency, and adoption of leading practices. Next steps include finalizing steering committee Charters, Charters for remaining committees, forums, and councils, a revised governance manual, and lastly, developing and delivering Governance training to committees, Board Liaisons and Staff Liaisons.
- In addition to announcing AMIA Board and Officer election results, the announcement of Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD, graciously accepting the position of Secretary for 2025-2026 (first term) was shared. This vacancy was as a result of the election of Philip Payne as the next President/Chair-Elect.
Journal Eligible Initiative
The Board approved trialing a new Journal Eligible Initiative opportunity for authors submitting papers to the AMIA 2025 Symposium. At the time of submission, authors will be able to identify their interest in having their science considered for review for journal publication, if accepted. Five journals will be included in the pilot program, as identified by the AMIA Journals and Publications Committee: JAMIA, JAMIA Open, Journal of Biomedical Informatics (JBI), Applied Clinical Informatics Journal (ACI); and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and JAMA Network.
AMIA Membership Survey
The Board engaged in a strategic discussion focused on AMIA’s membership proposition after a presentation from Avenue M, AMIA’s partner for this summer’s membership survey. Findings from the survey showed AMIA’s satisfaction score at
74%, on par with other professional organizations and up 4% from the last survey in 2018. Respondents view AMIA as an industry expert, multidisciplinary, and credible. 52% view AMIA as their professional home. Top areas of interest for respondents include artificial intelligence, clinical informatics, health data analytics, clinical decision support, and natural language processing. Members join AMIA to belong to the informatics community, participate in networking, access up to date information, and attend AMIA meetings. While membership numbers continue to grow, our membership survey helps provide key areas to focus on in 2025.
A Look Ahead
In addition to discussions around 2025 task force and committee plans, the AMIA Board plans to bring together member volunteers to provide recommendations around three areas: (1) future AMIA meeting transformation, (2) location considerations for future meetings, and (3) strategic planning for 2026-2030. We are starting to explore several opportunities for career growth, networking, and education suggested by health system and industry partners. We also hope to see you at the Informatics Summit, March 10-13, 2025, in Pittsburgh, PA. Look for registration to open mid-December.
The AMIA board and staff thank you for making AMIA such a special community. Together, we continue to innovate, grow, and lead the world of informatics. My best to you and your families as you celebrate this holiday season. Looking forward to seeing you in the New Year.
Yours sincerely,
Genevieve Melton-Meaux, MD, PhD, FACMI
President and Board Chair
American Medical Informatics Association
Professor of Surgery and Health Informatics
Senior Associate Dean, Health Informatics and Data Science
Director, Center for Learning Health System Sciences
University of Minnesota
Chief Health Informatics and AI Officer
M Health Fairview