The MIC (Medische Informatica Congres, Médical Informaties Congress) has a long tradition in Belgium and in The Netherlands. It started in 1978 in Rotterdam and was foUowed in 1979 in Antwerp. For its 20^th edition, it is held in Brussels (5-7 December 2002).

MICs were organised since their beginning by two national societies for médical informaties: MIM in Belgium {Medische Informatica, Informatique Médicale) and VMBI in the Netherlands {Vereniging voo r informatie verwerking in de zorg). They attracted regularly up to 400 participants.

MIC 2002 is organised in association with the Telematics@health-care.be symposium of the Belgian Fédéral Ministry of Social Affairs and Public Health.

These two Conferences share new trends in health informaties, such as local standards for patient records and for hospital information Systems, messages exchanges and privacy protection, as well as on line health networks. This book deals also with more academie subjects like clinical research and e-learning, as well as with specific applications in relation to nursing, pharmacy and gênerai practice.

This collection of papers presents many timely new ideas and practical proposals.

We wish to acknowledge the work of all authors as well as of reviewers who selected the papers and made proposals to improve their quality. We thank also Mrs Dominique Dieng from INFOPOLE for her precious contribution in the support of the éditorial work, as well as Mrs Chris De Hollander and Mrs Dominique Pironet, for the technical editing.

We hope that these MIC 2002 proceedings will help to develop further collaboration in the field of health informaties in these two countries and in Europe.

F. H. Roger France

A. Hasman

E. De Clercq

G. De Moor