In Europe, coordinated activities in healthcare informatics education started in the late 1980s with the establishment of European Courses in Health Telematics. At the same time the European Commission foresaw the need for spreading the knowledge of IT in the Healthcare Sector. Therefore the EC, since then, have supported the initiatives that aim to create awareness, stimulate diffusion, educate and train the users (healthcare professionals) in the application of Information Technology to the Healthcare Sector.
Such an initiative is the NIGHTINGALE project which is an essential project in the planning and implementation of strategy in training the nursing profession in using and applying healthcare information systems. The fact that the project is focusing on the user needs related to the telecommunication and informatics area of the nursing profession, which is the largest profession in the healthcare providers group, makes it unique.
The NIGHTINGALE project will contribute towards the appropriate use of the developed telematics infrastructure across Europe by educating and training nurses in a harmonising way across Europe in the upcoming field of nursing informatics. For achieving this objective the NIGHTINGALE project established a series of European Conferences on Health Telematics Education, and Workshops by experts (users, developers, and policymakers).
In 1996, the following NIGHTINGALE Conferences and Workshops took place:
• First European Conference on ‘Health Telematics Education’ (HTE'96), that was held on 5-7 September 1996, in Corfu, Greece.
• First Users and Policymakers Workshop on ‘Educating Nurses for the Telematics Era’, on 4-6 May 1996, in Heemskerk, The Netherlands.
• First Developers and Multimedia Workshop on ‘Courseware Development for Training Nurses in Informatics: State of the Art and Current Perspectives’, on 30 August-1 September 1996, in Lyon, France.
• Second Users and Policymakers Workshop on ‘Developing Curriculum in Nursing Informatics’, on 8 September, in Corfu, Greece.
The proceedings of the above mentioned NIGHTINGALE Conferences and Workshops are included in this volume.
I would like to thank all the members of the NIGHTINGALE Consortium for organising the Conference and the Workshops, the Chairman of the Working Group 6 of EFMI Prof. Arie Hasman wholeheartedly for his constructive support, the members of the NIGHTINGALE Users and Developers Groups, the members of the IT EDUCTRA project for participating and supporting the initiative, the speakers and those who provided effort in producing these proceedings, especially Dr. Marianna Diomidus, Mr. Petros Dounavis, Mrs. Arianne Josemans-Maandag, Miss Emily Karistinou, Mr. Ioannis Malliotakis, and Miss Anna Paidi. I would like to thank specially Miss Emily Karistinou for her careful compiling of the Proceedings.
The Editor
Prof. John Mantas