The International Medical Informatics Association was established in 1969 as a Technical Committee of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). In l979 it became a Special Interest Group, which was transformed in 1989 into a politically independent international organization, with affiliation to IFIP. IMIA serves the specific needs in the application of information science and information technology in the fields of health care and reseatch in medical and health informatics. This field is also referred to as Medical or Healt Informatics.
IMIA is in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO-NGO).
IMIA is a bridge organization:
The basic aims of the Association are to:
The business language of IMIA is English. IMIA has National Members, Institutional Members, Affiliate Members and Honorary Fellows. One society, a group of societies or an appropriate body which is representative of the Medical Informatics activities within that country, may become the National Member representing the country. National IMIA member societies can organize into Regional Groups. Universities, medical centers, professional organizations as well as vendors may become Institutional Members. Professional international organizations can become Affiliate Members. Societies or representatives from countries which are not Members of IMIA may be accepted as Observers for a limited period of time.
The Association is governed by its General Assembly that meets annually, and consists of one representative from each IMIA Member, Honorary Fellows, and a representative of IFIP and WHO. Only National Members have full voting rights. The General Assembly elects the IMIA Board.
The vice-presidents give the Board added vigor and vitality to pursue IMIA's mission to:
IMIA organizes the tri-annual World Congress on Medical Informatics, MEDINFO. Former MEDINFOs were held in Stockholm (1974), Toronto (1977), Tokyo (1980), Amsterdam (1983), Washington (1986), Beijing/Singapore (1989), Geneva (1992), Vancouver (1995), and Seoul (1998). The 2001 MEDiNFO wilI be held in London, UK.
IMIA has established Special Interest and Working Groups (see separate information), and is supporting and encouraging Working Conferences on the state-of-the-art and on timely health informatics issues.
The IMIA Publications Office in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, stimulates the publication of results of Working Conferences in the form of books or special issues of journals. Since 1992, IMIA also publishes the Annual Yearbook of Medical Informatics. The IMIA Newsletter is published by its office at the George August University in Göttingen, Germany.
Outreach to related fields such as healthcare assessment and computer-based patient records are major initiatives of IMIA as it moves toward the 21 st century. The goal of all initiatives is to provide the health professional and the patient information when they need it, where they need it, and how they need it. Medical and health informatics is the area where caring and information technology meet.
For more information:http://www.imia.org
Italy
Italian Society for Medical Informatics (AIIM)
President:
Prof. Angelo Serio
Via T.Macrobio,10
00136 Roma, Italy
Tel: +39 6 3542 0351
Fax: +39 6 3973 0337
E-mail: aiim@officine.it
http://www.officine.it/aiim
For informations on website: marbel@officine.it
The Italian Association for Medical Informatics (AIIM) was founded on 1997 to promote the applications of informatics in the different areas of medicine.
The objectives of the AIIM are the dissemination and exchange of information on medical informatics, for support patient care, teaching, research and health care administration; to advance international cooperation in medical informatics; to promote medical informatics education and to organize courses for health services personnel.
The AIIM is a Member of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) and the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA).
The Members categories are: (a) Regular members including physicians, nurses, dentists, teachers, researchers, biomedical engineers, health services administrators, other health care professionals who have a strong interest in medical informatics; (b) Honorary members: very important persons in the field of medical informatics; (c) Correspondent members, including representatives of other Organizations and Associations having similar aims (European Society for Medical Decision Making; National Association for Informatics in Neuroscience, Italian Telematics Forum, etc).
The President of AIIM, who has to be a physician, and the national council (10 members), are elected every four years by the membership.
At present, AIIM organize a National Congress every two years, and annually other meetings and workshops on specific topics. The previous AIIM National Congresses have been held in Parma (1997), Catania (l985), Firenze (l988), Como (l989), Cassino (1990), Catania (1991), Genova (1992), Roma(1994), Venezia (1996); furthermore AIIM organized in Rome the Seventh European Congress on Medical Informatics (MIE 1987): about 1000 participants coming form 32 countries all over the world took part in the Congress.
The proceedings of the national congresses published by AIIM are an important source of information for the knowledge of medical informatics progress in Italy.
At present the following Working Groups are operating in AIIM:
AIIM cooperates with governmental bodies as an adviser in the field of medical informatics.
Guidelines on Telemedicine and Telematics in Health Care and on Health Cards, were approved during the last national Congress in Venice with the participation of representatives of governmental ahd military health organizations, health professionals and scientific associations researchers, telecommunication and information technology companies and industries, national research council, and citizens associations.