Medical Informatics is a specific discipline arising from the increasing intersection of computer science and medicine. This introduction will provide a background for computer scientists who want a basic understanding of the health care environment, and care providers who want to better comprehend the challenges to efficient data management. Health Information Management Systems (HIMS) are automated data collection and analysis tools to manipulate clinical information. Many unresolved obstacles remain challenges for the HIMS architects and implementers. While many HIMS are commercially available considerable difficulty exists in finding enterprise systems, which accurately facilitate the cross-disciple data collection and analysis requirements of the enterprise. Building a framework for integration, federated representation, or enterprise level replacement of specialized component systems presents an ongoing challenge.

Many problems, not necessarily unique to, but exacerbated by the medical domain model, are among the fundamental justifications for federated information systems.  Autonomy of data collection systems within specialized medical knowledge domains and practices, and heterogeneity of conceptual data are two key reasons for building a federated infrastructure. In this article I define a federated information system, discuss challenges to implementing medical information systems and suggest a specific federated architecture to facilitate analysis of data from the medical enterprise.