Medinfo2013 will be in …

At the IMIA General Assembly meeting in Hiroshima, Japan on 25 November 2009, the decision was made on the site for the Medinfo2013 conference. Two bids were presented, by colleagues from Copenhagen, Denmark and Istanbul, Turkey. After a vote of GA members, the decision was made that Medinfo2013 will be in Copenhagen, Denmark. More news will follow in due course.

IMIA Board meets in Hiroshima, Japan

On 24 November 2009, the IMIA Board is meeting in Hiroshima, Japan. A report on the Board meeting, and tomorrow’s IMIA General Assembly meeting, will be posted after the event.

Photo courtesy Antoine Geissbuhler.

IMIA Board meeting - November 24, 2009

AMIA 2009 Symposium

The annual AMIA symposium (http://symposium2009.amia.org/) is currently (until 18 November) taking place in San Francisco, USA, with approx. 2000 participants. Many IMIA members are also attending, presenting, and participating in various ways.

The event is being interactively reported in a number of ways – many people are using Twitter, and tweets can be found by searching Twitter for the #amia2009sf hashtag (some people are also using #amia09). AMIA also has its own Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/AMIAinformatix) and a small number of tweets are at http://twitter.com/IMIAtweets and http://twitter.com/medinfo2010 There seems to be less use of blogs, although some reports are at http://www.hi-blogs.info/

There is a Medinfo2010 stand in the exhibition area – Lyn Hanmer, LOC chair is there to promote the event.

300 days to Medinfo2010!

There are now only 300 days to the start of Medinfo2010 in Cape Town, South Africa. See the conference website at www.medinfo2010.org for all the latest information – including early bird registration, which closes on 18 December.

If you are at the AMIA2009 symposium in San Francisco, then please call by the Medinfo2010 stand in the exhibition area to see us.

“Methods” Student Editorial Board

The Student Editorial Board of Methods of Information in Medicine is now accepting applications from trainees for the new term (2010-2011). The deadline for applications is December 13, 2009.

The Journal Methods of Information in Medicine – an official IMIA publication – is now accepting applications from trainees who would like to be considered for the Student Editorial Board. The goal of the Student Editorial Board is to learn, understand, and participate in the peer review process of submitted manuscripts that are considered for publication. The Student Editorial Board will provide outstanding trainees with a mentored opportunity to learn and experience the various aspects of the peer review process.

Applicants from all countries are eligible to apply if they are enrolled as a trainee in a graduate degree granting or post-doctoral training program. Members of the Student Editorial Boards are expected to

* demonstrate critical thinking;
* have experience in a biomedical/health informatics-related field (in a broad sense);
* have experience in aspects of scientific writing and communication;
* understand research design and basic concepts of biostatistics; and
* have a good mastery of the written English language.

Members of the Student Editorial Board are not expected to graduate (terminal degree) or complete their post-doctoral training during their term of appointment and are not on a student editorial board member of another journal.

The Student Editorial Board will include up to six members each year. The selection process is competitive and selected applicants will be appointed to a one-year term, renewable to a second-year term by mutual agreement. During the appointment period members of the Student Editorial Board will receive educational material, instruction, and feedback about peer review, and actively participate in the review of 3-5 manuscripts per year.

The application deadline is: December 13, 2009. A zipped file that includes the application material can be obtained from the Journal’s website:  http://www.schattauer.de/methods-seb.html

The application information includes:

* Invitation for Application
* Application form
* Instructions for Letter of support from the Director of Training Program or research advisor

All application material needs to be submitted to the Journal’s Editorial Office (ed@MethodsInfMed.org) by the deadline (December 13, 2009). If you have any questions please direct them to Ina Hoffmann (ed@MethodsInfMed.org).

IMIA General Assembly – Hiroshima, November 25 2009

The annual meeting of IMIA members, the IMIA General Assembly, will be held on November 25, 2009 at the Hiroshima Institute of Technology (Hiroshima City Campus), Hiroshima, Japan. It will be preceded by the IMIA Board meeting on 24 November. Both events are by invitation only, which all members should have received. For any queries, please contact imia[at]imia-services.org

Information is available on the IMIA website at http://www.imia.org/members/assembly/reports/imia_reports_new.lasso

The two meetings are being held in conjunction with the CoMHI 2009 events (http://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/humind1/comhi2009/index.html).

Arie Hasman farewell symposium – Amsterdam, January 15, 2010

After a 35 year international career in the field of biomedical informatics, Arie Hasman will retire by the end of 2009. In his honour, and to recognise Arie’s contributions to the biomedical informatics field, a farewell conference/symposium will be held on Friday, January 15, 2010 (from 12:00 – 19:00) in the Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

If you would like to attend this conference, or would like further information about the arrangements for this event, please send an e-mail to afscheid.hasman[at]gmail.com

Starting his career in biomedical informatics in 1974 at the Free University of Amsterdam, Arie Hasman has been active in many national and international research and educational projects, including several EU funded projects. He was editor of the International Journal of Medical Informatics and is still a member of the Editorial Boards of several journals. After chairing the department of Medical Informatics at the University of Maastricht for 16 years, he was appointed chair of the Department of Medical Informatics of the Academic Medical Centre – University of Amsterdam in 2004. He is (co)author of about 250 publications and a number of books in the areas of signal analysis, image analysis, information systems, knowledge based systems and computer aided instruction.

IMIA Health Information Systems WG event – Sept. 2010

Christian Lovis, chair of the IMIA Health Information Systems Working Group (IMIA HIS WG), has announced that the WG will be organising a two day workshop on Health Information Systems – 30 Years of Evolution, that will take place just before the Medinfo 2010 Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

Christian notes that 2010 is a very important date for the IMIA Health Information Systems (HIS) WG, and Cape Town a very special place. In 1979, the first HIS working conference was held in Cape Town, South Africa. As a result of that conference the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) created a working group on hospital information systems. That working group has since organised a series of working conferences (Nijmegen, Gottingen, Durham, Heidelberg) of which the proceedings have been published.

As the next World Congress on Medical Informatics, Medinfo, will take place in September 2010 in Cape Town (http://www.medinfo2010.org/), this offers a unique opportunity to have another HIS working conference in conjunction with Medinfo where the evolution over a 30-year period can be discussed and challenges for the coming decade identified.

The event is scheduled to be held on September 10-12, 2010 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Further details will be advised in due course.

At the two-day conference, several of the pioneers in the field will be present, together with new talent; there will be three plenary sessions, discussion groups and invited speakers, and the outcomes of the conference will be reported during a panel at Medinfo.

Some you may have missed – 23 October 2009

An overdue post in our irregular round-ups of health and biomedical informatics news items culled from a range of sources.  (All links are for information only, and do not imply any IMIA endorsement of any item or view expressed).

Automated external defibrillator (AED) and augmented reality – Lucien Engelen from the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands launched AED4EU – users can add places where AEDs are located and the database can be accessed through a new application, AED4EU, on mobile phones (eg Android via Layar reality browser) or on Twitter. 20 October on Berci Mesko’s Scienceroll.

HIMSS Launches HIMSS Facebook Fan Page – The newly launched HIMSS Facebook Fan Page (which will replace the HIMSS Facebook Group) will allow users to get direct news and event updates to their Facebook Walls, as well as other features, including event groups, photos, discussions, links and more. 15 October on HIMSS News.

Trendsmap in Medicine= Google Maps + Twitter Trends – Trendsmap, the combination of Google Maps and Twitter trends, provides possibilities for tracking diseases through an interactive map by using the information uploaded by people from around the world. 04 October on Berci Mesko’s Scienceroll.

EHI celebrates 400th newsletter – E-Health Insider has issued the 400th edition of its weekly healthcare IT newsletter; distributed to more than 24,000 people, including policy makers, suppliers, IT teams, clinicians and others with an interest in healthcare IT and the use of information in the (mainly UK) health services. 22 October, from E-Health Insider.

NIH Awards New Grants To Build Capacity In Informatics In Global Health – The Fogarty International Center, part of the National Institutes of Health, announced it will award more than $9.23 million to eight global health informatics programs over the next five years to increase informatics expertise in low- and middle-income countries by training scientists to design information systems and apply computer-supported management and analysis to biomedical research. 16 October on Medical News Today.  Note also the Informatics Training for Global Health (ITGH) website >>>

12 iPhone : EMR , PHR and Patient Trackers applications - A blog post summarising a range of currently available applications. 12 October on Goomedic Informatics Portal.

AMIA2009 – some international highlights

The AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) 2009 Annual Symposium takes place on November 14-18. This year it will be held at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, 333 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco, California, USA; full information on the event is on the website (http://symposium2009.amia.org) and there is a searchable programme and online itinerary planner (http://amiaannual2009.abstractcentral.com/login).

As every year, there are too many highlights to mention – and many presentations and activities with a specific international flavour for both those with an interest in global and international aspects of health and biomedical informatics and international participants. Among these are:

Experiences and Challenges in Global Health Informatics – a panel to include presentations on the Saudi Arabia National Guard Electronic Disease Surveillance Systems (NGEDSS), Millennium Global Village-Network (MGV-Net), mobile e-health in the Mekong Basin of Southeast Asia for the detection and reporting of public health events, and the informatics strategy to support the new Joslin Dubai Diabetes Center.

AsiaPac Informatics—Update on Informatics Activities from Pacific Rim Countries – panelists from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan discussing the current state of informatics and eHealth in their region.

A poster theme of 20/20 Global e-Health Informatics Capacity Building.

The invitational International Reception for international participants.

OpenMRS: Success and Challenges for EHRs in Resource-Poor Settings – a panel discussing specific case studies, successes and future applications.