The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association is a bimonthly journal dedicated to the burgeoning field of medical informatics. Medical informatics is broadly defined as the application of computers and information technology to health care as well as to medical education and biomedical research. The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association presents peer reviewed, state-of-the-art material to assist physicians, informaticians, scientists, nurses, and other health care professionals to develop and apply medical informatics to patient care, teaching, research, and health care administration.