HISI summer 2009 - IJMS | Irish Journal of Medical Sciences

Healthcare Informatics Society of Ireland Newsletter Summer 2009
Health Informatics Society of Ireland, Crescent Hall, Mount Street Crescent, Dublin 2 T: 01 644 7820 F: 01 622 02224 E: info@hisi.ie W: www.hisi.ie
Welcome to the new look of the HISI newsletter. In this edition, we discuss the latest news,
developments and events in Healthcare Informatics in Ireland and abroad. In addition, you will
find a call for papers and presentations as we look forward to the 14 th Annual Conference and Scientific
Symposium in November.
Irish Computer Society to bring professional administration support to HISI
The Irish Computer Society (ICS) has recently taken over the administration duties of HISI. Historically,
HISI has been affiliated to the ICS for years. This move to bring the day-to-day administration duties
under the ICS aims to leverage the synergies between the two societies in order to deliver an enhanced
experience for HISI members. This change will not affect the management of HISI.
In the coming weeks, a new version of the HISI website (www.hisi.ie) will be released. The new website will
boast current international news, upcoming events, past event reviews and more.
In announcing this move, Gerard Hurl, Chair of HISI stated “With the acknowledgement of ICT in optimum
healthcare delivery and the developments in the role and functions of the healthcare informatics
professionals, the HISI executive decided that it is imperative to adopt the more professional approach to
organising HISI activities and the provision of services to its members that the ICS can provide.”
Jim Friars, ICS Chief Executive Officer commented, “The ICS has a successful track record in running the dayto-day
administration of a membership organisation and we look forward to working even more closely
with HISI and its members.”
In Other News:
Survival and Sustainability – Challenges for IT in Healthcare page 2
HISI Launches I-CHIP: Ireland’s First Register for Health Informatics Professionals page 4
President Obama backs investment in ICT as critical to Healthcare reform page 5
HIMSS Europe Continues its Expansion page 6
Articles & Features:
Implementing Health Systems – A Pan European perspective page 6
HISI Holds 13 th Annual Conference and Scientific Symposium page 8
HISI introduces Diamond Membership page 9
HISI Research Bursaries 2009 page 9
IMIA Board Meeting held in Dublin page 10
Event Calendar:
Upcoming events 2009 to 2010 page 11
HISI Newsletter Summer 2009

Survival and Sustainability – Challenges for IT in Healthcare
Extract from address by Prof. Gerard Lyons, HISI President at HISI Special One-Day conference
in Dublin April 23rd 2009
This special one-day HISI conference is being held to recognise the visit to Ireland of the
Board of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). We hope this event will provide
an opportunity to learn from international experience and to gain a better understanding of the shared
challenges and opportunities we face as healthcare IT specialists. In the 42 years since its foundation,
IMIA has served to promote the advancement of healthcare through the application of informatics
developments in clinical practice and healthcare management. It has recognised that we share many
common challenges across the globe. Critically, it has fostered a mutual respect and understanding
between clinicians and informatics professionals, as the only sustainable platform upon which practical
improvements can be made in healthcare IT.
This conference is being held at a defining period for publicly
funded healthcare systems throughout the world. Ireland Inc.
represents a live and emerging case study which has parallels
throughout the developed world. While the IMF has forecast
a global economic contraction of about 1½% this year, most
commentators now agree on a GNP decline of 8-10% in Ireland,
followed by a further 3% negative growth in 2010. In Ireland,
“current tax revenue
simply cannot afford
to sustain healthcare
spending levels”
current year expenditure on publicly funded health and social services now accounts for as much as 45%
of the total national tax revenue. With effective increases in taxation biting hard (by up to 20%) into takehome
salaries, coupled with a doubling of real unemployment in just a year, we must all now face-up to the
underlying challenge of escalating costs of public healthcare systems and question the sustainability of
this form of provisioning in the medium term.
However, in the short-term, we are faced with the more immediate challenge of survival, as current
tax revenue simply cannot afford to sustain healthcare spending levels. In Ireland, this comes at a very
unfortunate time as the programme of healthcare transformation, led by the Health Service Executive, may
well be crippled by an inability to invest in the future. Should this happen, we will all be faced with a far
worse taxation burden in the future and a much poorer healthcare service.
If there is anything to be gained from the current global economic meltdown, it is the loud wake-up call
to re-evaluate our current ingrained aspirations, assumptions and “ways of doing things around here”. The
White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, recently advised that “one should never waste a good crisis”. So,
this period may well be defined by a new willingness to face-up to the stark realities of public healthcare
and take a more mature and responsible attitude to promoting reform, whether as tax payers, healthcare
providers, patients, carers, doctors, nurses or trade-union bodies.
Some of our most pressing responsibilities are:
• An ageing population which will drive further increases in demand for healthcare within the next 10
years – this is an unstoppable trend!
• Lifestyle choices (evidenced by increasing Body Mass Index and per capita alcohol consumption)
which are already placing a huge burden on the healthcare system and this will rise exponentially
unless we can tackle the problem at source – personal accountability!
• Healthcare outcomes which are poorer in Ireland for many conditions despite the high spending
levels – clearly, we have an urgent need to re-think delivery processes and structures, both on the
clinical practice side and on the provisioning cost dimension!
• Rising wealth which has promoted unrealistic aspirations for a uniformly high-quality healthcare,
while appearing unwilling to bear increased taxation – someone’s got to pay!
• A need to balance health promotion and disease prevention with the exponentially increasing costs
of high-acuity treatments, as well as an evaluation of the efficacy of advanced health technologies.
2 HISI Newsletter Summer 2009

While we are all conscious of these underlying challenges, to-date we appear to have been incapable
of tackling them with a collective determination – perhaps it’s just like we pretended the Celtic Tiger was a
durable species...!
By way of contrast, the Obama administration has now begun to
confront the far greater problems facing US healthcare. Evidence of
their commitment to health informatics is the recent allocation of
up to $19 billion in a stimulus budget for health IT spending, with a
determination to achieve nation-wide implementation of electronic
patient record systems by 2014. Regrettably, Ireland has been very
slow to realise the potential of health IT, and we spend less than half
of 1 per cent (i.e. “½” %) of the annual public healthcare budget on
IT. While money alone is never going to transform Irish healthcare, a lack of spending on areas critical to
healthcare transformation, will further reinforce the inefficient rigidities which confound our health system
daily. Neither will IT on its own bring about a radical transformation of clinical and operational practice.
We need a sustained and choreographed effort that must include:
• Clinical practice change;
• Healthcare management and organisation change;
• Re-design of healthcare delivery models and operational practices; and
• Support from the tools, techniques, systems and expertise available from health IT.
But, given where we’re starting from in Irish healthcare IT, we need much more than academic exhortation
to achieve meaningful change in a realistic time frame of not more than 4-5 years. We desperately need to
assemble a full poker hand of 5 trump cards:
1. Motivation: Clearly, the flames are leaping high from our “burning platform” for healthcare
transformation. The need for change really exists in absolute terms. We must now face-up to this
need, honestly, and collectively – politicians, tax payers, healthcare professionals, patients & carers,
and especially our very vocal representative bodies.
2. Direction: Despite the many volumes of expert opinion in virtually every care group sector, and
the never-ending debate about private vs. public systems, we have not set-out a clear and viable
model for end-to-end healthcare delivery in Ireland which accommodates the multitude of different
needs and provisioning approaches (public, private, and voluntary). This is not a simple task and
is not amenable to a political quick-fix as often advocated; nor can we simply transpose healthcare
delivery models that appear to work in other jurisdictions, as these are all context specific.
3. Powerful Friends: IT has not been held in high regard in Irish healthcare (albeit, for all the
wrong reasons) but the old tapes must now be changed. We need IT based transformation to be
championed at the highest administrative, political, institutional and commercial levels. We need
a pragmatic consensus approach which includes: Ministers for Health and Finance; back- benchers
and opposition spokespersons; Healthcare administrators – HSE, DoHC, Clinical Leaders, Healthcare
IT vendors, and international key opinion leaders (such as IMIA).
4. Proven Successes: We need to demonstrate quickly that IT can really make a tangible, significant
and very public difference in: clinical outcomes, better access, increased patient safety and resource
efficiencies.
5. Health Informatics Professionals: Finally, we need to cultivate a cohort of health informatics
professionals, cross-trained in both the technical skills of computer science and the clinical
knowledge of the healthcare application domain. This may well be the most difficult challenge, as
the current supply of health IT professionals is totally inadequate throughout the developed world.
HISI Newsletter Summer 2009
3

Equipped with these 5 trump cards, we could feel confident that IT can be used to good effect both in
terms of near-term crisis management and in longer-term sustainability. But if we’ve learned anything
from the recent economic crisis it is that we are now operating well beyond the boundaries of normality
and planning certainty. We cannot afford the luxury of single, large-scale all “singing n’ dancing” IT
solutions. Instead, we must embrace the reality of a multitude of collaborating systems and applications,
which must become interoperable (even at a basic data exchange level) if we are to make progress towards
a more effective, scalable and efficient healthcare system.
HISI Launches I-CHIP: Ireland’s 1 st Register for Health Informatics Professionals
During its 13 th Annual Conference, the Health Informatics Society of Ireland (HISI) announced the launch
of the first Irish register of health informatics professionals.
In a climate of increasing concern about standards and efficiency in the health service, HISI recognises the
crucial role played by health informatics professionals in the development and maintenance of ICT policies
and structures in Ireland. Expertise is essential for effective use of ICT, and with fewer than 1000 dedicated
ICT staff out of approximately 160,000 working in healthcare in Ireland, this lack of skilled resources is a real
barrier to the use of ICT. I-CHIP, the Irish Council for Health Informatics Professions, will provide a register
and classification of health informatics professional in Ireland.
Health informatics deals with the practical application of computing and communications technology
in healthcare. It incorporates the design and optimisation of information systems that support clinical
practice, public health and research, outlining best practices in healthcare delivery and public health
management.
Patient safety relies on the information that supports clinical and management decision making, and
therefore on the professionals who process that information. I-CHIP will promote a voluntary register of
Health Informatics professionals who work to standards that are clearly defined, providing individuals
and employers with a recognised framework for professional recognition and development, ensuring the
protection of the public from the consequences of lack of regulation.
I-CHIP aims to advance the application of informatics in the promotion of health
and well-being, and to uphold and improve the standards of qualifications
and competence in informatics. It will collaborate with other professional
associations and with UKCHIP on relevant matters.
I-CHIP verifies registrants’ level of expertise through assessment and comparison
against the industry standard Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA),
enabling participants to plan career advancement in a structured manner.
I-CHIP will provide a comprehensive register of HI professionals, and accommodate people who work
directly and indirectly with ICT in healthcare, at every level. The register comprises many professional
roles including: Managers, Clinicians, ICT staff, Administrative staff, Health records staff, Information
management staff, Clinical informatics staff, Researchers, Educationalists and Commercial suppliers.
I-CHIP will be governed by the I-CHIP Council, comprising an expert Health Informatics panel.
For more information about I-CHIP visit: http://www.ics.ie/ichip
4 HISI Newsletter Summer 2009

President Obama backs investment in ICT as critical to Healthcare reform
With healthcare spending in the US totalling more than $2 trillion a year and 45 million people in the
US lack health insurance, healthcare reform is a top priority for the Obama Administration and the
111 th Congress. As a proven tool for improving efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare, health IT is seen
as critical to reform.
As part of his healthcare platform during the presidential campaign, Senator Obama called for a $10
billion-a-year investment over the next five years to foster the broad adoption of health information
technology initiatives such as electronic medical records (EMRs), electronic health records (EHRs), personal
health records (PHRs), and electronic prescribing (e-prescribing), due to their potential for transforming
the delivery and payment of healthcare in the US, and improving population health and the overall
efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare.
On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009 (ARRA). Included in this legislation was the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical
Health (HITECH) Act which provides over $20 billion for stimulus measures relating to health information
technology (HIT), including incentives for adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems.
The largest allocation of funding — approximately $17 billion — is for incentive payments through the
Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement systems to encourage providers and hospitals to implement EHR
technology systems. The incentive payments are triggered when a provider or hospital demonstrates it
has become a “meaningful EHR user.” Payments are paid over time, with larger payments in the early years
and lower payments over time, totalling as much as $48,400 for eligible professionals and up to $11 million
for hospitals. On the other hand, hospitals and eligible professionals suffer penalties through reduced
Medicare reimbursement payments if they do not become meaningful users of EHR by 2015.
In addition to this funding, the HITECH Act establishes additional government and agency involvement
in setting policy, standards, specifications, and criteria for HIT and EHR systems. The Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) is established within the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), and will be the primary agency involved in this effort. ONCHIT will
be headed by a national coordinator to be appointed by the Secretary of HHS (Secretary). The national
coordinator is charged with developing a nationwide HIT infrastructure that improves health care quality,
reduces health care costs, and protects patient health information.
Other measures include:
• Grants for HIT/EHR research and development programs
• Investment in the nationwide HIT infrastructure
• Grants for integrating information technology into clinical education
• Financial assistance to universities to establish or expand medical informatics programs
• Funding for extension programs and regional centers to provide technical assistance with respect to
adoption/use of HIT
• Grants to states and Native American tribes to provide funding to facilitate and expand the exchange
of electronic health information
• Competitive grants for loan programs for health care providers to acquire and use EHR technology
The Department of Health and Human Services has named Dr. David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., (most
recently the director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as
a Harvard Medical School professor) as the Obama Administration’s choice for National Coordinator
for Health Information Technology. As the new National Coordinator, Dr. Blumenthal will lead the
implementation of a nationwide interoperable, privacy-protected health information technology
infrastructure as called for in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Blumenthal will also be
instrumental in setting the various standards and reporting policies for participation in the HITECH Act.
HISI Newsletter Summer 2009
5

HIMSS Europe Continues its Expansion by Jeremy T. Bonfini, Senior VP, Global Services, HIMSS
Four years since the opening of its office in the European capital, HIMSS Europe has steadily
consolidated its presence in the region. As part of its mission to provide leadership for
the optimal use of healthcare IT technologies, the association is organising new events and
activities in Europe and continues to strengthen its relations with key partners over the
continent.
In an effort to create synergies with other major players from the eHealth community, HIMSS Europe, IHE
Europe and COCIR continue to partner on eHealth projects and initiatives. In this context, a joint event was
recently organised in Vienna during the IHE Europe Connectathon and future collaboration projects are
under way. IHE Europe and HIMSS again plan to organise Europe’s premier IHE Showcase in March 2010.
In addition, HIMSS Europe coordinates the work of international user and working groups so as to facilitate
the exchange of eHealth information on a global scale. An example of this endeavour is the creation of
the EHR Global Enterprise Task Force which has been tasked with identifying best practices in EHR systems
implementation globally.
Aside from these numerous initiatives, HIMSS Europe’s major activity remains the organisation of the
World of Health IT Conference and Exhibition – the region’s flagship event for connecting leaders in
technology and healthcare. Now in its fourth edition, the conference will be held 15-18 March 2010
in Barcelona in conjunction with the yearly eHealth High Level Conference - co-organised by the
European Commission and the Spanish presidency of the EU.
2010 will also see the launch of the HIMSS Europe HIT Leadership Summit, an exclusive event for C-level
executives to network with peers while they learn about the latest HIT trends and challenges.
To better support these activities, HIMSS Europe has expanded its team with new staff appointments and
the hiring of a new Executive Director, Myriam De Greef, who joins HIMSS Europe from the European
Commission. The association is also guided by a governing council comprised of 10 members from
different regions across Europe. Chris Nolan, who sits in HISI’s Executive Committee, is a member of the
HIMSS Europe Governing Council which will hold its next meeting in Dublin during the 2009 HISI
Annual Conference.
Implementing Health Systems - A Pan European perspective By Tony Kenny
EHR- Implement is an EU-funded study on the implementation of Electronic Health Record (‘EHR’).
The first from a European perspective, the included: Belgium, England, Denmark, France, Ireland
and Slovenia. The study is being managed by INSERM (Paris). Study design, analysis and the synthesis of
findings is being provided by FORTH (Crete).
The study aimed to gather and share information and experiences from health informatics
implementations from different European countries. It was clearly recognised that this study would not
produce a comprehensive comparative evaluation of EHR implementations because of the diverse nature
of the various projects that were undertaken.
The intent was to: broaden the pool of experience gained from different national implementation projects,
capture specific experience of the case studies selected by the six participants, distil those experiences to
act as a resource to policy makers and implementers of health informatics projects and develop a baseline
snap shot of the state of health informatics in the member states of the EU- which will be a questionnaire
based survey.
It was recognised that this study would not provide specific metrics or a comprehensive evaluative
framework to policy makers considering significant health informatics investment decisions. The concept
6 HISI Newsletter Summer 2009

of “Electronic Health Records” was chosen as a convenient “catch-all” to categorise the disparate systems
nominated as case studies by the various national participants. Indeed the project moniker was selected
before the specific case studies were known. It does not purport to be a detailed study of Electronic Health
Record systems*
Below are the case studies by the participating countries. Find detailed reports at www.EHR-implement.eu
Belgium: The development of a “locator” service. This is essentially a search tool to manage
access/authorisation to the disparate elements of an individual’s EHR.
England: An overview of the national Connecting for Health program
Denmark: A comparative review of 4 national Health ICT strategies – discussing the range of factors
that have remained constant and those that have changed over time.
France: An overview of the initial project to introduce the DMP (Dossier medical personal –
a personal health record for each French citizen). This project failed and the factors that
contributed to this are examined.
Ireland: A report on the implementation of a patient administration system - ISOFT
Slovenia: An analysis of EHR policy – with particular reference to eZIS – a portal, communications
network and a framework for a national EHR.
A separate thread of activity was the generation of a survey instrument to collect a baseline of the state of
health informatics in the EU member states. This postal survey will target each national jurisdiction and has
yet to be undertaken.
The material developed from the case studies and from the forthcoming survey will be presented at an
open forum session, likely to be organised in conjunction with the Spanish government who will host a
meeting on health informatics during their EU presidency. This project will be presented at the annual HISI
conference which will be held in November 2009. It is hoped some of the foreign participants will be able
to contribute to this session.
Insights that have emerged from this collaborative work
Investment in health informatics remains a high priority amongst policy makers throughout
Europe
In some instances, policy makers enthusiasm seems to be based on unbounded optimism
The motivation underlying this interest is a complex amalgam of factors including:
◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
A desire to contain rising health budgets
A recognition that “doing what we always did” is not an option
A desire to address concerns over patient safety
A deep interest in re-structuring health delivery systems using technology
A response to consumer/patient demands for better access to personal health
information.
All the participants report that this is “hard work” – with new challenges at each phase of the
implementation cycle
Our own national experience – while smaller in scale than that of other countries- does
show solid achievement, building competency in a coherent way
Nobody is claiming that they have the problem “cracked”
Everyone seems willing to share experiences (good /bad)
This project is a good example how the EU is enabling effective information sharing on a topic of real
interest to all member states. It builds on other collaborative efforts e.g. Pro-Rec Europe etc. – to promote
real sharing of experiences over national borders.
* An EHR is defined by the US-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society as “an electronic record of patient
health generated by one or more encounters in any health care delivery setting. Included in this information are patient demographics,
progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunisations, laboratory data and radiology reports.
HISI Newsletter Summer 2009
7

HISI Holds 13 th Annual Conference and Scientific Symposium
The Health Informatics Society of Ireland held its 13 th Annual Conference and Scientific Symposium, on
19 th and 20 th November 2008 in the Stillorgan Park Hotel Dublin.
A major component the conference was a focus on the issues surrounding information with an invited
workshop organised in liaison with the Department of Health and Children on the proposed Health
Information Bill and a workshop involving HIQA, HSE, ESRI and ILPI. These workshops were fully attended
and the Department of Health and Children expressed their delight with the level of interest and
participation in the Workshops on the Health Information Bill. They stated that the outcomes from those
workshops would help inform the preparation of this challenging and complex Bill and thanked all those
who participated and also HISI for its willingness to host a major feature on the Bill at its annual conference.
For this year’s plenary session, which was organised in
conjunction with the Irish Health Services Management “...Healthcare Informatics makes a very
Institute, we maintained our tradition of having as a keynote significant and critical contribution to
speaker the winner of the US CEO of the Year award for
improved healthcare efficiency, costeffectiveness
and safety”
Information Technology and we very pleased to welcome
this year’s winner, Dr. James Mongan, President and Chief
Executive Officer of Partners HealthCare in Boston. The
- Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D
session, which was chaired by Mr. Denis Doherty, President
of HMI also featured Sir Leonard Fenwick, Chief Executive of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust, Mr. Liam Woods, National Director of Finance, Health Services Executive and the 2008
O’Moore Medal Winner, Dr. Glyn Hayes.
During the plenary session, Mr. Gerard Hurl, Chair of the Society announced the first Irish register of health
informatics professionals, I-CHIP, the Irish Council for Health Informatics Professions. More about I-CHIP on
page 2 of this newsletter.
Other highlights and events included an award ceremony which took place prior to
the pre dinner conference reception on Wednesday 19 th November at which Former
Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D. presented the O’Moore Medal, a distinguished
recognition honouring an individual’s outstanding contributions to healthcare
informatics. This year’s recipient, Dr. Glyn Hayes (pictured left) has been an outspoken
promoter of the potential for ICT in supporting improved care and a leader in the
development of healthcare informatics skills. Instrumental in the establishment of
the UK Council for Health Informatics Professionals of which he is President, Dr. Hayes
was recently recognised by the British Computer Society who presented him with a
lifetime achievement award.
In his speech introducing the award, Mr. Ahern stated: “It is now accepted internationally that Healthcare
Informatics makes a very significant and critical contribution to improved healthcare efficiency, costeffectiveness
and safety,” and he added, “It can help create a better working environment for healthcare
professionals and most important of all, it can lead to improved patient outcomes, care, safety and
experiences.”
In addition to presenting the O’Moore Medal to Dr. Hayes, Mr. Ahern also conferred the GPIT certification
award and the EuroRec Quality Label 2008 for Electronic Healthcare Records systems on four Irish
companies. These companies were the first in Europe to be granted the EuroRec Seal since its introduction.
Present at the ceremony were the Chairperson of the GPIT and representatives of the EuroRec Board.
8 HISI Newsletter Summer 2009

The recipients were:
• CompleteGP, version 2.1 of Eircom, Cork, Ireland
• Health One, version 6 of Health Ireland Partners, Arklow, Ireland
• Helix Practice Manager, version 1 of Helix Health, Dublin, Ireland
• Socrates, version 1.5 of Technical Ideas.Com, Ballinode, Ireland
In addition to the Health Information Bill workshops on the first day of
the conference there were seminars and expert sessions on technology innovation, security, safety and
quality standards, software certification, nursing informatics and a CIO Masterclass. There were thirty-five
peer-reviewed presentations on the afternoon of the second day of the conference.
This year’s Best Paper award went to C.P Hor of N.U.I. Galway for “General Practitioners’ Attitudes and
Preparedness towards Clinical Decision Support in e-Prescribing (CDS-eP) Adoption in the West of Ireland”.
Also during the conference attendees had access to the commercial exhibition and commercial
presentations on the latest systems and technology developments and product updates.
HISI introduces Diamond Membership
HISI introduced Diamond membership to ensure the continuing support of the
development of health care informatics. We thank and acknowledge the support of our
Diamond members which allows the continuing circulation of this newsletter, the recent
special seminar when IMIA visited and of course the conference.
For more information contact Chris Nolan, cris@ics.ie
A special thanks to our newest Diamond Members
HISI Research Bursaries 2009
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2009 grants.
Please send all submissions to The Secretary, Research Awards, HISI.
Every year the Society awards two research grants of €2000 each, to enable
individuals study an area of Healthcare Informatics. Submissions are received
from a range of Informatics students at Bachelor, Higher Diploma/Post
Graduate Diploma, Masters and PhD level.
Applicants are required to submit a 500-word application incorporating
the rationale for the study, a brief section on the methodology proposed
and a breakdown of the planned use of the funding to be awarded. Finally,
they should state how this study will contribute to the area of healthcare
informatics in Ireland.
Successful applicants must submit a paper to the HISI conference within two
years of the award. They will also be required to account for the expenditure
of the funding awarded. Failure to fulfil either of these conditions will result
in a demand for the return of the funding.
More information is available on our website: www.hisi.ie
Closing date for paper submission is Friday, 11th September 2009.
The 2008 HISI Student Bursaries were awarded to:
Laura Cunningham, University of Ulster at Jordanstown - “The Development of Assitive Technologies to support independent living.”
Stephen Roantree, Trinity College Dublin - “The Development of a Framework for the Empirical Evaluation of Adaptive Educational Systems in Medicine.”
HISI Newsletter Summer 2009
9

IMIA Board Meeting held in Dublin
HISI has been a member of IMIA, the International Medical Informatics Association, for many years;
and since 2003 the HISI Treasurer, Diarmuid UaConaill, has been Secretary of IMIA. This year, at
the invitation of HISI, the IMIA Board held its April meeting in Dublin. The venue was the beautiful Ely
House, Dublin 2, one of the best preserved Georgian buildings in Dublin, courtesy of the Knights of Saint
Columbanus. In recognition of this honour, HISI organised a Special all day Conference on 23 rd April,
themed ‘Modern Healthcare ICT: Challenges and Opportunities’ at which IMIA Board members contributed.
The conference, which was over-subscribed, was opened by Professor Gerry Lyons, President of HISI
who spoke on ‘Survival and Sustainability – Challenges for IT in Healthcare’ (an extract of his speech is also
published in this newsletter). Below are the speakers and the topics they presented:
Speaker
Prof. Gerry Lyons, President of HISI
Gerard Hurl, Chairman of HISI
Prof. Dr. Reinhold Haux,
Germany, IMIA President
Dr. Glyn Hayes, O’Moore Medal Recipient
2008, Chair of the U.K. Health Informatics
Forum Strategic Panel, Secretary General of
Eurorec
Prof. George Mihalas,
Romania, EFMI Vice-President to IMIA
Dr. Jos Aarts,
Netherlands, Medinfo Taskforce member
Dr. Fernando Martín-Sanchez,
Spain, IMIA Vice-President for Membership
Prof. Casimir Kulikowski,
USA, IMIA Vice-President for Services
Dr. Peter Murray,
UK, IMIA VP for Strategic Planning
Dr. Lincoln A Moura Jr.,
Brazil, IMIA Treasurer
Topic
Survival and Sustainability – Challenges for IT in Healthcare
Keynote: Aligning healthcare delivery and ICT strategies within
a national context
Challenges for ICT in Ageing Societies. A Report on the Lower
Saxony Research Network Design of Environments for Ageing
The Development of Professionalism in Health Informatics
Barriers in Implementation of Health Information Systems - the
Romanian Experience
The impact of HIT on clinical work practices, electronic
prescribing, alerting and decision support
Biomedical informatics and new trends in personalised
medicine: genomic, regenerative and nanomedicine
Decision Support Informatics Challenges for HealthCare
Exploring the potential of Web 2.0 within health and informatics
The experience of the introduction and utilization of Health
Information Systems in Brazil
On Friday 24 th IMIA’s Medinfo Taskforce met in the morning, while the rest of the day was occupied by a
Board Strategic Planning meeting. The proper Board Meeting was held on Saturday 25 th . A meeting of the
IMIA Yearbook Editorial Committee was also accommodated, as was a meeting of the IMIA Office taskforce.
The hard work was balanced by an enjoyable social programme. On Friday 24 th ,
HISI hosted a dinner in Ely House. Unfortunately Professor Haux was taken ill
and unable to attend. The next evening he was sufficiently recovered to host
an IMIA dinner and entertainment in the Merry Ploughboy pub in Rockbrook.
On Sunday 26 th several members of the Board enjoyed a visit to Newgrange
and Knowth.
The events of the weekend were overshadowed by the unexpected death on April 12 th of IMIA’s Executive
Director, Steven Huesing of Canada. He was remembered in Prof. Lyons’ opening remarks, and at the Board
meeting a minute’s silence was observed in his honour. Toasts were drunk to his memory at both the HISI
and IMIA dinners.
10 HISI Newsletter Summer 2009

Events Calendar
July 2009
7th ICICTH CONFERENCE
July 16-18, 2009
Samos, Greece
7 th ICICTH SAMOS 2009 aims to facilitate the
discussion on the effective use of Information
Communication Technologies in the process of
healthcare and to provide a forum for scientific
debate and constructive interaction in a multi
cultural social environment. E-Health & ICT
Management will be the central themes of the
ICICTH Samos 2009.
Fore more information visit: www.ineag.gr/ICICTH
September 2009
EuroRec 2009
September 1 2009
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
The EuroRec 2009 Annual Conference will be organised
in collaboration with IMIA and MIE2009.
Participants of the EuroRec conference will benefit from a
reduction for the MIE 2009 Conference.
For more information visit: http://www.eurorec.org
MIE 2009
August 30 – September 2 2009
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) Conference is the
main scientific event in medical, biomedical, and health
informatics, held every two years out of three in Europe.
Its attendance is around 500–1000 participants especially
from 32 European member countries of the European
Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI).
For more information: www.mie2009.org
November 2009
EFMI STC 2009
TurkMIA Medical Informatics ‘09
November 12-15
Belek-Antalya, Turkey
STC 2009 focuses on Travel Informatics which is an
important new area of research and development.
For more information visit: www.turkmia.org/stc2009
HIMSS Middle East Health IT
Leadership Summit,
November 15-17 2009
Muscat, Oman
The HIMSS Middle East Health IT Leadership Summit is a
new, executive level forum for education, collaboration
and dialogue. Top leaders from healthcare, IT and
government will convene to help advance the quality of
healthcare delivery.
For more information visit: himssme.org/summit
IMIA General Assembly & Board
Meeting November 25, 2009
Hiroshima, Japan
Held in conjunction with CoMHI, the joint meetings
of IMIA WG4 (SiHIS), APAMI 2009, and JAMI Scientific
conference (29 th JCMI) to be held November 21 - 25,
2009. Participants are estimated over 2500. Attendance
Limited to IMIA General Assembly representatives.
For more information visit: http://www.imia.org
March 2010
World of Health IT 2010 Conference
and Exhibition, March 16-18
Barcelona, Spain
Designed to be dynamic and interactive, The World
of Health IT 2010 Conference Programme will engage
participants in thought-provoking debates & discussion
panels. The parallel sessions are scheduled to last
one and a half hour and will offer attendees various
perspectives on the topics.
For more information visit: www.worldofhealthit.org
_______________________________________
September 2010
13th International Congress on
Medical Informatics,
September 12 - 15 2010
Cape Town, South Africa
This will be the first time MEDINFO is held in Africa. It
promises to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare
delivery and the underpinning health information
systems. This will open the door to new academic
partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new
breed of health informaticians.
For more information visit: www.medinfo2010.org
HISI Newsletter Summer 2009
11

14 th Annual Conference
& Scientific Symposium
Wednesday and Thursday, November 18 th /19 th 2009
Stillorgan Park Hotel, Stillorgan Road, Dublin
Call for Papers and Presentations
The 14 th annual conference and scientific symposium will reflect current developments in
healthcare computing, associated technologies and communications infrastructures within
Ireland and in the wider international context.
Papers and Poster Presentations of either a general or specialised nature will be considered.
Abstracts of no more than 150 words must be submitted before September 25 th 2009 to:
by post:
or email:
Mr. G. Hurl, Chairman HISI
Healthcare Informatics Society of Ireland
ICS, Crescent Hall, Mount Street Crescent, Dublin 2
hisi@ics.ie
NB. Abstracts should comply with the guidelines issued by the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.
A prize of €300 will be offered for the best paper or poster presentation