Conference Report: R / Medicine Report

Authors

Joseph Rickert, RStudio
Naras Balasubramanian, Stanford University
Michael Kane, Yale University

Date of this Version

12-2018

Document Type

Article

Citation

The R Journal (December 2018) 10(2); Editor: John Verzani

Comments

Copyright 2018, The R Foundation. Open access material. License: CC BY 4.0 International

Abstract

R has found widespread use and is flourishing in bioinformatics, the pharmaceutical industry, clinical trials, and basic science labs. While R is being adopted in clinical informatics, its potential has not yet been realized. We believe R will fundamentally transform the space because of its strengths in making new methods available, the availability of tools for reproducible research, its interfaces to other languages, and it’s ability to disseminate new approaches through web interfaces and packaging for rapid prototyping of ideas and implementations.

Moreover, while large number of clinicians, scientists, and statisticians contribute to data driven medical science, communication between individuals working in similar areas has been limited. The goals of the R Medicine working group, and the annual R / Medicine conference, are: (1) to form an international community that can help to facilitate collaboration and awareness of developments in the field; and (2) to do a better job of integrating data scientists into medical research to form more meaningful collaborations with clinicians.