The German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS) hosts MIE2000, the 16^th Medical Informatics Europe Congress, and GMDS2000, its 45^th annual congress. It is a contribution to the World Exhibition EXPO2000 that takes place in Hannover from June to October 2000.

Medical Infobahn for Europe was chosen as motto for this combined conference. It reflects the growing role of communication in health care. The challenge of this century is to develop and introduce information technology for the improvement of quality and efficiency of health care. Telematics applications will focus on the patient and support evidence-based health informatics, will provide generic medical information for health care professionals and citizens, and support disease management as well as case management. Biometry and Epidemiology continuously contribute to the progress in medicine by focussing on risk assessment, prevention, improvements in therapy, drug surveillance and safety, and by providing a rational synthesis for evidence. Presentations, demonstrations, tutorials and other contributions of Medical Informatics as well as the methodological contributions of Biometry and Epidemiology are covering an important number of topics. Tutorials are providing background knowledge for the scientific presentations and the contents of discussions during workshops will be used for producing reports and recommendations concerning the future use of information technology in health care. Additional material will be handed out to the participants during the conference (paper copies and the MIE2000/GMDS2000 CD-ROM).

Because of the combination of the two congresses two Scientific Programme Committees were active. The chairs of both committees worked together very closely. After a reviewing process (in which each paper was reviewed by three reviewers) a programme resulted, consisting of oral presentations (so-called long oral presentations), combined oral and poster presentations (so-called short oral presentations) and pure poster presentations. The long and short oral presentations are published in these Proceedings. The poster presentations will become available on the CD-ROM.

Many relevant topics are covered in the Proceedings. Because of the combination with the 45^th annual GMDS congress also presentations from the disciplines Biometry and Epidemiology are included. Furthermore, a number of papers are in German, reflecting the fact that they concern contributions that will be presented at the annual GMDS congress.

The editors of the Proceedings want to thank all authors for submitting papers; reviewers and programme committee members for judging the papers; Hannelore Wimmer, Marianne Scammell and Marié Vanherle for their support in the preparation and the production of the Proceedings.

Arie Hasman

Bernd Blobel

Joachim Dudeck

Rolf Engelbrecht

Günther Gell

Hans-Ulrich Prokosch