Summary
Objectives
To summarize and highlight the role of IMIA in the past 40 years in becoming the international
professional organization that brings together researchers, practitioners, and educators
in the field of medical informatics, and more broadly biomedical, nursing, and health
informatics
Method
Outlining developments of medical informatics related to IMIA from 1967 to 2007 in
a time-line and comparative topic and geographical distribution analyses over selected
MEDINFOs from 1980 and selected Yearbooks from 1992 onwards. This illustrates how
IMIA, through the global reach of its activities, has helped advance the science and
development of informatics across the entire spectrum of biomedical and health care
research, education, and practice.
Results and conclusions
The contribution of IMIA over the past 40 years has been to sponsor and coordinate
international conferences and promote interchange and collaborations in biomedical
and health informatics by linking national and regional societies, organizing meetings,
high quality publications, and working groups. These have helped the coalescing of
the discipline worldwide, promoting full participation and a broad interdisciplinary
scope that fulfills the hopes of the pioneers in the field.
Keywords
International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) history - medical informatics
- health and nursing informatics - world congresses of medical informatics (MEDINFOs)
- IMIA Yearbook - and Working Groups
