Copyright (c) 2026 Moisés Serrano Samudio
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Introduction: The digital transformation of health systems demands professionals capable of integrating clinical, technological, and organizational knowledge. Despite more than five decades of international academic development, the physician with training in biomedical informatics remains a scarcely recognized figure in Latin America, at a time when health systems in the region are accelerating their digitalization processes.
Objective: To describe the professional profile of the physician with training in biomedical informatics, their competencies according to international reference frameworks, their main practice settings, and the current state of the discipline in Latin America.
Methodology: Non-systematic narrative review with searches conducted in PubMed, LILACS, and Google Scholar using terms related to biomedical, clinical, and health informatics, supplemented by institutional documents from AMIA and IMIA and a directed documentary search of graduate programs in the region. Reporting was guided by the SANRA scale criteria.
Results: The conceptual and historical foundations of the discipline are described, along with the IMIA competency domains, five main professional practice settings, and twelve graduate training programs identified across eight Latin American countries. Active national scientific societies were documented in several countries in the region.
Conclusions: The medical informaticist represents a strategic professional profile for digital health transformation. The region has incipient but heterogeneous training and institutional structures, highlighting the need to strengthen specialized education, professional recognition, and regional coordination in biomedical informatics.
