Health surveillance using the internet and other sources of information

The rapid accumulation of large amounts of data from Internet searches, social network sites, and self-monitoring devices, in addition to the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHR) in the past few years have increased opportunities as well as challenges in effectively integrating and using these data. JAMIA has recently issued requests for papers (RFPs) for two special issues: one is dedicated to EHR Phenotype Extraction, and another one is dedicated to Big Data. The first RFP addresses the problem that, even though they are electronic, the data in EHRs are not always easy to structure and to harmonise across different institutions. Scalable and reliable approaches to extract meaningful phenotypes that can be integrated with genetic and environmental data are urgently needed, and we expect to publish the best work in this area in this special issue. The second RFP relates to ‘meaningful use’ of big health-related data. We will feature …