Prof. Dr. Norbert Hosten Appointed Editor-in-Chief of Section “Health Informatics and Big Data” in Healthcare

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Norbert Hosten has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Health Informatics and Big Data” in Healthcare (ISSN: 2227-9032).

Prof. Dr. Norbert Hosten is a German radiologist and professor at the University of Greifswald. He was born in Düsseldorf in 1957. Hosten's work focuses on magnetic resonance imaging, interventional radiology and telemedicine. In 2008, he took over the chairmanship of "Telemedicine in the Euroregion Pomerania", an association of experts that has set itself the goal of developing and expanding telemedicine in the Euroregion Pomerania. From June 2013 to May 2015, he served as the President of the German Radiological Society for two years. In 2015, he was honored in Szczecin with the two-year Pomerania Nostra Prize of the Universities of Greifswald and Szczecin for his services to cross-border telemedicine in the Pomerania Euroregion.

The "Health Informatics and Big Data" Section will develop publications for fields such as radiomics and similar areas of work in other disciplines. Healthcare is an extremely important journal for breaking news research in a field which is developing rapidly. 

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Norbert Hosten, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing: 

Healthcare is independent from medical societies. It therefore has the liberty to address problems independent from turf considerations. This, I feel, is much needed today. Especially in the field of the digitization of medicine, a more comprehensive approach is necessary, and healthcare can achieve that. 

Healthcare can cover the digitization of medicine in all its aspects—apps, the distribution of information via internet channels, etc. The digitization aspect of healthcare is what I am going to support as a Section Editor-in-Chief. This is a great challenge that I am sure will be rewarding for all of us. 

Regarding medical research, there will be a competition between big-data approaches and hypothesis-driven studies. It is fascinating to see how that will play out—and to have the opportunity to accompany it as the Section Editor-in-Chief for Healthcare. It is important to pool knowledge with the editors to achieve the broadest approach possible. 

Open access publishing is a much-needed tool in medical research. It makes publishing available to more scientists—after all, that is what its name says—and communication between scientists is enhanced.