International Medical Informatics Association
Encyclopedia
IMIA or the International Medical Informatics Association is an independent organisation
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

 that plays a role in promoting and furthering the application of information science
Information science
-Introduction:Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information...

 in modern society, particularly in the fields of healthcare, bioscience
BioScience
BioScience is a peer-reviewed monthly sometimes daily scientific journal that is published by the American Institute of Biological Sciences . The content is written and edited for accessibility to researchers, educators, and students alike...

 and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

. It was established in 1967 as a technical committee of the International Federation for Information Processing
International Federation for Information Processing
The International Federation for Information Processing is an umbrella organization for national societies working in the field of information technology. It is a non-governmental, non-profit organization with offices in Laxenburg, Austria...

 (IFIP). It became an independent organisation in 1987 and was established under Swiss law
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 in 1989.

Goals and objectives

  • the promotion of informatics in health care
    Health care
    Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

     and biomedical research
    Biomedical research
    Biomedical research , in general simply known as medical research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid and support the body of knowledge in the field of medicine...

  • the advancement of international cooperation
  • the stimulation of research
    Research
    Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

    , development
    New product development
    In business and engineering, new product development is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product to market. A product is a set of benefits offered for exchange and can be tangible or intangible...

     and education
    Education
    Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

  • the dissemination and exchange of information


Inherent in this mission is to bring together, from a global perspective, scientists, researchers, vendors, consultants and suppliers in an environment of cooperation and sharing. The international membership network of national member societies, IMIA regions, corporate and academic institutional members, and working and special interest groups, constitute the "IMIA family".

IMIA organises various conferences and events around the world and is currently focusing on "bridging the knowledge gap" by facilitating and providing support to developing nations. Specific goals include supporting the ongoing development of the African Region.

Code of Ethics for Health Information Professionals

The International Medical Informatics Association approved the endorsement of the IMIA Code of Ethics for Health Information Professionals at its General Assembly meeting on October 4, 2002 in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

. The code is the culmination of several years of a global collaborative effort led by IMIA's working Group on Data Protection in Health Information, Chaired by Professor Ab Baker.

Membership

IMIA membership consists of National, Institutional and Affiliate Members and Honorary Fellows.

National Members represent individual countries. A member is a society, a group of societies, or an appropriate body, which is representative of the medical, and health informatics activities within that country. Where no representative societies exist, IMIA accommodates involvement through "Corresponding" members within developing countries.

National member societies


Working and special interest groups

The IMIA family includes a growing number of Working and Special Interest Groups, which consist of individuals who share common interests in a particular focal field. The groups hold Working Conferences on leading edge and timely health and medical informatics issues.

IMIA Working Groups and Special Interest Groups include:
  • Biomedical Pattern Recognition
    Pattern recognition
    In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...

     (WG 07)
  • Biomedical Statistics
    Statistics
    Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

     and Information Processing (WG 12)
  • Consumer Health Informatics
    Consumer health informatics
    Consumer Health Informatics helps bridge the gap between patients and health resources. The Kaiser model is an example of allowing patients to remotely communicate with their physicians or other healthcare professionals....

     (WG2)
  • Dental Informatics (WG 11)
  • Health and Medical Informatics Education
    Education
    Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

     (WG1)
  • Health Informatics
    Health informatics
    .Health informatics is a discipline at the intersection of information science, computer science, and health care...

     for Development
    International development
    International development or global development is a concept that lacks a universally accepted definition, but it is most used in a holistic and multi-disciplinary context of human development — the development of greater quality of life for humans...

     (WG 09)
  • Health Information Systems (WG 10)
  • Informatics in Genomic Medicine (IGM)
  • Intelligent Data Analysis
    Data analysis
    Analysis of data is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making...

     and Data Mining
    Data mining
    Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...

     (WG 03)
  • Medical Concept Representation (WG 06)
  • Mental Health Informatics (WG 08)
  • Open Source
    Open source
    The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

     Health Informatics
    Health informatics
    .Health informatics is a discipline at the intersection of information science, computer science, and health care...

  • Organizational and Social Issues (WG 13)
  • Primary Health Care Informatics (WG 05)
  • Security
    Security
    Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...

     in Health Information Systems (WG 04)
  • SIG NI Nursing Informatics
  • Social Media Working Group
  • Standards in Health Care Informatics (WG 16)
  • Technology Assessment
    Technology assessment
    Technology assessment Technology assessment Technology assessment (TA, German Tenteractive, and communicative process that aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology.- General description :...

     & Quality Development in Health Informatics (WG 15)
  • Telematics
    Telematics
    Telematics typically is any integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT...

     in Health Care
    Health care
    Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

     (WG 18)
  • Wearable Sensors in Healthcare

See also

  • European Federation for Medical Informatics
    European Federation for Medical Informatics
    The European Federation for Medical Informatics is a non-profit organization, which was conceived at a meeting, assisted by the Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organisation , in Copenhagen, , in September 1976....

     (EFMI)
  • ISO TC 215
  • eHealthpedia, building an open health informatics wiki
  • Medinfo
    Medinfo
    MEDINFO is the name of the international medical informatics conference organized every 3 years by the International Medical Informatics Association. It is the most important international conference in the field with 3000+ health and medical informatics professions attending from all over the world...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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