| The
European Federation for Medical Informatics
(EFMI) was conceived at a meeting, assisted by
the Regional Office for Europe of the World
Health Organisation (WHO ), in Copenhagen
in September 1976. The representatives of
national Health / Medical Informatics societies
from ten European countries signed a declaration
of intent stating: "The
Federation shall be constituted as a nonprofit
organisation concerned with the theory and
practice of Information Science and Technology
within Health and Health Science in a European
context. We declare that the ten delegates here
today from the ten national societies shall
constitute the preliminary Council of the
Federation which thus hereby exists."
- The ten
countries present were Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, France, Federal Republic of
Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden,
and the United Kingdom. Today,
twenty-three countries are represented in
the Federation - the original ten plus
Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia,
Greece, Hungary, Eire, Israel, Portugal,
Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland,
and Ukraine. There is also formal liaison
with:
- WHO
- the
Council of Europe
- the
International Medical Informatics
Association (IMIA )
- the
AIM Programme
- Each European
country, as defined by the WHO Region, is
entitled to be represented in the
Federation by a suitable Health
Informatics Society. The term
"health informatics" is used
here to include all aspects of the use of
information management and technology in
the fields of health care and health
promotion. The organisation operates with
a minimum of bureaucratic overheads and
each national society supports the
Federation sending, and paying for, a
representative to participate in the
decisions of the Federation's Council.
This normally meets twice a year, English
having been adopted as the official
language for all EFMI's activities
- EFMI is
probably best known for its Medical
Informatics Europe (MIE) congresses.
These take place two years in every
three, in order not to clash with IMIA's
three-yearly Medinfo conferences. The
first such congress, MIE 78 was held in
Cambridge, England
- Last MIE
conferences were held in Lisbon, Portugal
MIE95, followed by MIE 96 in Copenhagen,
Denmark in August and MIE 97 in
Thessaloniki, Greece
- The next MIE
conference will be held in 1999 in Ljubljana,
Slovenia
- The first MIE in 2000 will
be held in Hannover, Germany
- Less well
known but equally as important is the
growing number of special topic
conferences, like AMICE and the PROREC
conference, often in collaboration with
other organisations, and working
conferences organised by EFMI's working
groups.
Objectives of EFMI
- To advance
international cooperation and the
dissemination of information in health
informatics
- To promote
high standards in the application of
health informatics
- To promote
research and development in health
informatics
- To encourage
high standards in education in health
informatics
- To function
as the autonomous European Regional
Council of the International Medical
Informatics Association (IMIA)
|
 External
links EFMI
WHO
International Medical
Informatics Association (IMIA )
AIM Programme
Medinfo
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