The use of Social Network Analysis to explore relationships between the Medical Informatics and Information Systems literature

Health informatics (HI) research has evolved over several decades from its roots in computer science (CS) and artificial intelligence in medicine (AIM). Information Systems (IS) evolved independently, but recently IS within health environments are being embraced as a new test bed for Information Systems theories. The purpose of this paper is to present an objective view of the level of cross reference between the IS and MI bodies of literature, and to either provide evidence of uptake of IS theories in HI or of outlets that would provide appropriate targets for such work due to their antecedents and influence. The extent of the cross fertilization between the two disciplines is still thought to be low. Using social network analysis (SNA) we present an exploratory study which identifies the bridges and cutpoints within a basket of 44 key journals and identify the impact of Information Systems research on the Health Informatics discipline. This work is informed by a number of recent studies using this approach.