This volume seeks to reflect the state of the art on medical informatics. It presents ideas that will guide the process of medical informatics. Topics in the book include: information systems in health care and medicine; telemedicine and telematics; security; biomedical processing, data mining and knowledge discovery; training and education; Internet/intranet; resources management; intelligent medical systems; health guidelines and protocols; electronic patient encounter, card technology, electronic data interchange; terminology; nursing informatics.

The European Federation for Medical Informatics is a regional coordinat ing body. The Congress in Dublin. MIE 82. from 21st to 25th March 1982. is the fourth in the series following MIE 78 in Cambridge. MIE 79 in Berlin. There was a break in 1980 for the World Congress - MEDINFO 8- in Tokyo. This was followed by MIE 81 in Toulouse. The rationale behind these congresses is the scientific need to share results and ideas. and the educational need to train a wide variety of professional staff in the potential of Medical Informatics in health care delivery. All the caring professions are involved. doctors. scientists. nurses. pharma cists. paramedical staff. administrators. health care planners. commu nity physicj-US'I,!Dedical educationalists. epidemiologists. statisti cians. o. pe-~atio'ns 'analysts. together with specialists from the comput ing profession dealin~ with systems analysis. hardware. software. lan guages. data ba, s~s and marketing of systems. The pre-publi~~tion of'conference proceedings from a multi-stream con ference is partic~l~t~y valuable in a rapidly expanding multidisciplin ary field su~h as'M~dical Informatics. It enables participants to fol low work presented at sessions that they are unable to attend. More im portantly. is also provides a permanent record with relevant bibliogra phy for other workers to assess which groups are active and in which areas. All the papers have been refereed and the referees' suggestions incorporated in the final texts. Rapid publication. using camera-ready copy. reduces the time available for editing and indexing.

Vol. for 2000 contains proceedings of the Medical Informatics Europe Congress and of the annual congress of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS).

These proceedings reflect the major scientific contribution by the First International Congress of the European Federation for Medical Informatics. The European Federation for Medical Informatics is a co-operative venture between the National Informatics Societies of Europe. It is sponsoring this first inter national meeting organised by the Medical Specialist Groups of the British Society under the guidance of a European Scientific Programme Committee. The challenge of medical informatics has been well taken and the scientific papers by its members cover a wide range of topics dealing with medical records, laboratory investigation, indexing and administrative systems, nursing records, planning and administration modelling, data bases, text processing, transferability, user education, privacy, etc. Not published in this volume are presentations by industry about hardware and software. Also at the meeting there will-be teaching sessions for doctors, nurses, scientists and administrators who are just entering this field which are also not published. Medical informatics has established itself as an important area of medical activity and its growing application, as this conference illustrates, suggests a very rich potential for the future. Aids to medical decision making and modelling are newer areas of activity, where significant progress has been made. Sociological changes have taken place to meet this challenge and developments in the issues of privacy and confidentiality are important, as also are user education, and the teaching of medical informatics to medical students and to doctors.

A variety of topics of bio-informatics, including both medical and bio-medical informatics are addressed by MIE. The main theme in this publication is the development of connections between bio-informatics and medical informatics. Tools and concepts from both disciplines can complement each other.

MIE 2002 is the XVIIth international conference of the European Federation of Medical Informatics. Today, mankind builds up the information society, enabled by the underlying rapid development in computer technology. The significance of the spread of the internet is comparable to the significance of Gutenberg's invention. On one hand it both helps dissemination of data and knowledge and sharing of ideas. On the other hand the achievements may divide the society, as did non-literacy deprive many people from knowledge throughout centuries. Today millions of people are isolated from an incredibly large amount of information because of "computer non-literacy," and a new elite mastering the information society has appeared. However, the ease of production and dissemination of information may foster thoughtless communication, and has lead to a flood of information and disinformation. We have to learn how to behave in this new situation, in which the dissemination of information - at an international level - is totally uncontrolled. In the area of medical or health informatics these questions are more serious. Lack of information, false or inadequate information, as well as improper interpretation of accurate information may seriously harm patients. And the process may go out of control of the physician, i.e. patients can "treat" themselves just by visiting some health sites on the net. Everybody may throw a message in a bottle in information flood, and everybody may pick up messages at any time. Can we do anything to ensure that all messages are valid? Can we guarantee that our messages reach the intended audience? Can we secure that content has not changed on its way? Do we know that people getting our messages will interpret them correctly? Are we able to understand the intention of a sender, when we get a message totally out of context? These questions build up the framework of MIE2002.

Title page -- Preface: Prof. Dr. Herbert Burkert -- Preface: Prof. Dr. Heyo Eckel -- Table of Contents -- Executive Summary -- Zusammenfassung -- Resume -- Resumen -- Sammanfattning -- The Editors, Key Authors, and Experts -- 1. Digital Signatures and Encryption as Key Elements of Security in Health Telematics -- 2. Methodologies Used in the Legal Studies -- 3. Liability Reference Model -- 4. Strategic Reference Model -- 5. Specific Issues in Health Care -- 6. Outlook -- 7. Materials -- Index of Subjects and Names