The 2012 pHealth conference is the 9th in a series of scientific events bringing together expertise from medical, technology, gaming, and social care domains all related to the provision of personalized health services. Aspects such as health games, terminologies and ontologies as well as social and ethical aspects of health provision are to be addressed by more than 40 speakers from various parts of the world. Keynotes, invited talks, oral presentations and posters, addressing requirements and R&D outcomes enabling the paradigm change towards personalized health, together with demonstrations of existing and emerging applications in the pHealth domain will complement round table discussions and the ambition to define road-mapping activities focusing on the year 2020.

pHealth conferences have emerged as the leading international conference series on wearable micro and nano technologies for personalized medicine and personalized health service provision. Starting in 2004, pHealth has gained importance for attracting well-acknowledged scientists in the domains of relevant technologies, medical doctors, and policy makers from academic institutions, hospital administrations, the healthcare industry and allied professions. Collecting the experience of a dynamically emerging professional community from Europe and beyond, the pHealth meeting series has given visibility to the tremendous potential of micro and nano technologies not only for the future of medicine, but also for the improvement of healthcare and welfare processes today and tomorrow, thereby helping to integrate health and social care.

Microsystems, smart textiles, telemedicine, mobile computing, smart implants and sensor-controlled medical devices as well as the related Internet-based networks – from GRID to CLOUD – have become important enablers for monitoringtreatment in both inpatient and outpatient care. This is, however, just the beginning of evolutionary and revolutionary changes, paradigm shifts, and significant opportunities for patients, citizens, health professionals, healthcare establishments, companies in the micro and nano technologies and, indeed, the entire healthcare industry. The multilateral benefits of the whole gamut of enabling pHealth technologies for all addressed stakeholders lead to a triple win situation with enormous potential, not only for medical quality improvement and industrial competitiveness, but also for increasing access to care whilst managing healthcare costs.

The pHealth 2012 conference will mainly focus on completed and running projects in various domains addressed by the pHealth conference series, but will also include at the same time new research topics and domain road mapping derived from round table discussions. Each session is foreseen to start with a Session Keynote. The remaining session time will address the same topic from different views. These presentations will either be provided by additionally invited speakers or by selected papers. All these topics are very closely linked to the Europe 2020 growth strategy. The pHealth 2012 conference benefits from the experience and the lessons learned from the previous pHealth events, particularly 2009 in Oslo, 2010 in Berlin, and 2011 in Lyon. The 2009 conference brought up the interesting idea of having special sessions focusing on a particular topic, and being organized by a mentor / moderator. The off of the conference. Lyon in 2011 initiated the launch of so-called dynamic demonstrations allowing the participants to dynamically show software and hardware solutions on the fly without needing a booth. The pHealth 2012 has taken these and other experiences into account for a successful conference in Porto. The idea of having a preconference event before the official start of the conference will allow attendees to present and discuss recent developments and provocative ideas that will to help animate the sessions. The Working Groups “Electronic Health Records”, “Personal Portable Devices”, and “Security, Safety and Ethics” of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) have been actively involved in the preparation and realization of the pHealth 2012 conference. Furthermore, pHealth 2012 provides the platform to organize a Joint Round Table Event on “Secure mobile devices and implants for realizing pHealth”.

This Proceedings volume covers the Keynotes, Invited Speeches as well as selected submitted contributions assigned as Oral Presentation or Posters. Despite the high quality of the material, all submissions, but also the invited contributions have been carefully and critically reviewed. So, the editors are indebted to the highest expertise representing reviewers for having essentially contributed to the quality of the conference and the book at hand.

Furthermore, they thank Paul Cheshire, London, United Kingdom, for the extraordinary work in polishing the non-native English contributions despite the critical scheduling.

The editors are also grateful to the dedicated efforts of the Local Organizing Committee members, chaired by Filipe Sousa, and their helpers for the smooth operation of the conference. They especially thank Liliana Ferreira, Susana Hotz and Maria Costa from Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS for their continuous involvement in the preparation and realization of the conference.

Bernd Blobel, Peter Pharow, Filipe Sousa

(Editors)