The Journal of Biomedical Informatics reflects a commitment to high-quality original research papers, reviews, and commentaries in the area of biomedical informatics methodology. Although we publish articles motivated by applications in the biomedical sciences (for example, clinical medicine, health care, population health, and translational bioinformatics), the journal emphasizes reports of new methodologies and techniques that have general applicability and that form the basis for the evolving science of biomedical informatics. Articles on medical devices; evaluations of implemented systems (including clinical trials of information technologies); or papers that provide insight into a biological process, a specific disease, or treatment options would generally be more suitable for publication in other venues. Papers on applications of signal processing and image analysis are often more suitable for biomedical engineering journals or other informatics journals, although we do publish papers that emphasize the information management and knowledge representation/modeling issues that arise in the storage and use of biological signals and images. System descriptions are welcome if they illustrate and substantiate the underlying methodology that is the principal focus of the report and an effort is made to address the generalizability and/or range of application of that methodology.
The methods that are the focus of JBI papers may be drawn from any of a number of component sciences in the field of biomedical informatics. Although the methods are often related to the field of computer science, many JBI papers will emphasize innovative techniques from other fields, such as decision science, statistics, cognitive science, psychology, information science, organizational theory, or management science.
If you are considering your bioinformatics article for submission to JBI, please be aware of this methodological focus. Biologic discoveries based on the use of routine informatics techniques may be important biologic contributions but are not suitable for JBI. In addition, please note that JBI publishes bioinformatics papers only if they deal with issues in translational (human) science. See the Translational Bioinformatics editorial that deals with this topic before submitting your paper.
Papers on biomedical privacy or security must also offer new and practical methodologies that are clearly motivated by the challenges of health care and biomedicine. An established method from another field does not warrant republication in JBI simply because it has been applied to a biomedical problem. We also look for papers that describe substantial methodological novelty rather than small incremental improvements on previously published techniques. See our Privacy and Security editorial for more detail about our policies for acceptable papers in this area.

Regular research papers
Methodological review papers
Commentaries
Special communications
Letters to the Editor
Book reviews
Editorials