Preface
Every three years since 1974, the MEDINFO world congresses of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) represent a unique opportunity to gather specialists from all over the world and present the state-of-the art of health informatics from a scientific, research and application perspective.
The general theme of the 1998 Seoul congress is entitled “Global Health Networking: a Vision for the next Millennium”. With the year 2000 approaching, this concept of a global health networked society is progressively becoming a reality. Technology barriers of connectivity, storage, and interface are fading. Planet wide networks are rapidly developing. Multimedia information, such as that generated from digital imaging or signal processing is progressively integrated to the electronic patient record. The explosion of health information, such as the one produced by the unlocking of the human genetic code, can be counter-balanced by the availability of distributed knowledge banks. Decision support systems that require simultaneous access to patient information and filtered knowledge are progressively moving from the research to the production domain. As the same time, the need for continuous patient care as well as economic pressures, push the various health actors to collaborate to find optimal solution.
Papers from 47 different countries have been submitted for presentation to the scientific program committee. This high participation reflects the considerable impact and the large audience of Medical Informatics that emerges as a new, scientific, medical discipline.
Each submitted paper has been carefully reviewed by at least three reviewers from different countries. The Organizing, Editorial and Scientific Program Committee have been working diligently for the past couple of years to make the Congress a truly memorable professional and personal experience for all participants. We would like to thank all their members for all the energy devoted to the cause of medical informatics, as well as the previous organizers who allow IMIA to be a living and renewing world family.
MedInfo'80 Scientific Program Cochairmen
Charles Safran
Patrice Degoulet