History and background

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.

Copenhagen, 11 September 1976.

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, or 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 oncoming 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 in often in collaboration with other organisations, and working conferences organised by EFMI's working groups.

The objectives of the European Federation for Medical Informatics are: 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, and To function as the autonomous European Regional Council of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA).