1 Membership of IMIA-LAC
As of January 2018, 12 medical informatics societies from Argentina (AAIM, Hospital Italiano), Bolivia (SOBOTIM), Brazil (SBISS), Colombia (ACIESA), Costa Rica (moH), Chile (ACHISA), Cuba (MoPH/ SCIM), El Salvador (IMHS), Mexico (AMIM), Peru (SOPTIS), Puerto Rico (SHI-LAC), and Uruguay (SUIS) were members of the Federation of Health Informatics for Latin America and Caribbean (IMIA-LAC)
3 IMIA LAC GA Meeting
The last IMIA LAC GA Meeting was held on 21rd August, 2017 during the Medinfo 2017 conference in Hangzhou, China. Eight IMIA member societies were represented including Spain as a guest, together with IMIA Past President Lincoln de Assis Moura and Vice Chair of the Working Group History of Biomedical and Health Informatics Valerio Yacubsohn. Main topics to discuss included IMIA-LAC Board elections and the InfoLAC 2018 in La Habana, Cuba. The next meeting will take place during InfoLAC 2018, where the new Board will begin its activities.
At the IMIA-LAC regional level, an informal rotation system is used to elect the president of the IMIA-LAC board with Brazil in line to provide the next leader of the organization. At the meeting, Marcelo Lucio Da Silva, CEO from SBISS was elected as the incoming president.
It was announced that InfoLAC 2018 will take place in Cuba during the celebration of the conference Cuba Salud, April 23-27, 2018 Members are encourage to promote and attend the conference.
4 Members’ Activities 2017
Argentina
President: Dr. Alan March
Conferencia Latinoamericana de Informática (CLEI) and Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Invetigación Operativa (SADIO) co-organized the eighth Argentine Congress of Health Informatics (CAIS) in Córdoba. The congress proposed an interdisciplinary approach to the socio-technical problems and practices that emerge from the rapid advancement of information and communication technologies in our societies. Supported by the Argentine Association of Medical Informatics (AAIM), the HL7 Argentina Association, the Argentine Bioengineering Society (SABI), and the Argentine Society of Information Technology (SADIO) the congress helped to share ideas, knowledge, and experiences through a variety of contributions from the private sector and the academic, commercial, and professional fields.
About 650 people from the field of health and technology attended the XIIth Informatics Symposium held at the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires during on September 4-8, 2017 or followed the events through remote connections. On average, virtual classrooms had about 200 followers connected to activities and reached up to 150 logged in participants, all of whom had the opportunity to pose questions to the speakers.
The record number of 650 physical participants exceeded the average 400 participants in previous meetings. The large number of participants demonstrated the sustained growth of the conference, which definitely established itself as a “must-attend” event for academic informatics updates in eHealth in Latin America.
Brazil
President: Dra. Beatriz de Faria Leâo
SBIS is the Brazilian member society in the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). The specific objectives of SBIS include: 1.) To stimulate teaching activities at the various levels of scientific research and technological development, 2) To promote scientific events and other activities of science dissemination and exchange of ideas and information, 3) To encourage coordination between individuals and / or groups, 4) To contact and collaborate with related companies and organizations, 5) To contribute to the health policy, and 6) to promote and incentivize the utilization of standards for the representation of health information.
SBIS organized the e-Health & PEP 2017 conference which took place in Sao Paulo from September 18-20th The conference addressed current and relevant issues for all those working with information systems in health organizations. Alongside the great and permanent challenge of syntactic, semantic, and organizational interoperability for the ethical sharing of clinical information, Brazil is experiencing an important transition with the e-Health Strategy and in the Supplementary Health Plan published by the Tripartite Commission and adopted in the Ministry of Health. With more than 250 participants, the conference was well attended.
Chile
President: Dr. Alejandro Mauro Lalanne
ACHISA (Chilean Association of Health Informatics) organized ISChile from Sep 28th - 29th., 2017 for the third time. The conference provides an annual instance in which the development of Health Informatics in Chile is exposed from an academic-scientific perspective allowing attendees to share experiences and be updated on the latest advances in the discipline in the country and the world. The conference adopted the format of “reactive panels”, where the lectures accepted by the Scientific Committee are presented in front of a “reactor panel” formed by experts in the discipline, who moderate, deliver feedback including comments and best practices to the presenters. Using this format, the conference maximized the impact of the experience and knowledge of the experts, while retaining the focus on the projects of researchers and professionals in the region. The conference had more than 250 attendees.
Cuba
President: Dra. Esperanza O'Farril
SOCIM (Cuban Society of Health Informatics) executives participated in the July 17 - 19, 2017 National Methodological Workshop for Heads of the Department of Medical Informatics of the Medical Sciences Universities of Cuba at the Center for Cybernetics Applied to Medicine (CECAM). Topics debated in detail included the analysis of equipment, connectivity, development of the curricular strategy for the discipline, and the migration to free software. The conference had more than 300 participants.
SOCIM will host the Latin American International Congress on Health Informatics. Infolac 2018 (April 23-27, 2018). The president of the conference will be Dr. Ariel Delgado Ramos, Informatics and Communications Director at the Cuban Ministry of Public Health. Vice-President will be Dra. Esperanza O'Farrill Mons, who serves as President of the Cuban Society of Medical Informatics. Infolac's goals and scope include promotion of foundational research, and to stimulate, analyze, and learn about the progress of information technology, telecommunications, electronics, medical equipment, and automation in Cuba's health care and in the world. The congress will have space for scientific and academic exchanges between professionals, scientists, engineers, businessmen, government representatives, International Organizations, and the general public interested in research. Topics of Infolac will include in the Health and clinical practice category: 1.) Computing for Primary Health Care, 2) IT in isolated communities, 3) Open systems in health, 4) Hospital management and automation, 5) Quality assurance, 6) Collaborative work and learning network: Distance education in health, and 7) Knowledge and pedagogical practices in health in network education. In the category Informatics and the processes of Nursing topics include: 1) Networking for nursing development: Information technology in Care Management 2) Computer applications in nursing processes, 3) Networking for the development of nursing, 4) ICT in nursing teaching processes, and 5) Computer education and knowledge management in nursing. In the category Telemedicine topics will include: 1) Medical technologies and telemedicine: Telematics, 2) Management of databases in computer applications for health, 3) Internet as an instrument for health, and 4) Telemedicine M Health applications. Finally, in the category Informatics, society, and health, the topics include 1) Regulations and regulations on the use of ICT in Health, 2) Computing in public health, 3) Advanced integrated information systems in health, 4) Computer science in STIs / HIV / AIDS, 5) Health surveillance, 6) Health Information Security: New information technologies and clinical practices. Collaborators for the conference include the Pan American Health Organization, the Cuban Society of Medical Informatics, the National Center of Information of Medical Science, the Cuban Society of Nursing, and the Pan American Federation of Nursing Professionals. The conference will offer a unique opportunity to meet government and academic authorities with responsibilities in the medical informatics development in Cuba. SOCIM invites members of IMIA-LAC and IMIA member organizations to join them for this conference in Cuba in 2018.
Mexico
President: Dr. Miguel Angel Lezana Fernandez
AMIM (Mexican Medical Informatics Association) organized DES 2017 (Digital Economy Show) / eHealth. Innovation driven by the digital economy generates new business models and digital applications are changing the performance of science, governments, cities, and sectors such as health, education, banking, retail, energy, transport and agriculture. The effects are seen in the destruction and creation of jobs in different sectors, in the emergence of new forms of work and in social relationships. DES 2017 was an event where entrepreneurs, public policy makers, talent trainers, students, and society in general, interested in deepening their knowledge of these topics met. e-Health was one of the most important topics during the conference, where EFMI, IMIA, and AMIA experts discussed changes in the healthcare environment in terms of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring of the most frequent pathologies, as well as in health management, reducing costs to the health system, and improving the quality and productivity of the services. The conference had more than 500 attendees.
AMIM invites IMIA members to attend a special conference on Nursing Informatics, which will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico, on June 6-8th, 2018. The conference will be co-organized by IMIA-NI, AMIA, AMIM, and IMIA-LAC. The conference will leverage the use of IT in the healthcare sector in Mexico and will include the following topics: Precision Medicine, Self-management of care, Telemonitoring, and Patient Safety and Empowerment. The organizers are expecting more than 500 attendees.
Nursing Informatics Group
Colombia and El Salvador hosted in May and June training workshops for nurses to improve their skills in using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at the point of care. The International Network of Nursing Informatics (RIEI by its Spanish name), supported by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), invited speakers to join and support the events.
The Nursing Informatics group hosted a virtual meeting on the Contribution and sustainability of visualization of International Nursing Network websites through the Observatory PAHO / WHO (http://www.observatoriorh.org/?q=redes-internaciona-les-de-enfermeria) and the Blog for collaborative work (http://blogs.sld.cu/vialart/).
PAHO has announced that the office in Washington, DC will no longer sponsor the infrastructure and communications of RIEI. Therefore, countries will take over and provide opportunities to share projects and become involve into the regional initiatives.
The Nursing Informatics Working Group organized a number of teleconferences in 2017:
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Virtual libraries
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Computer programming: philosophy of care.
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Ontological Bases in computer science or nursing: the axioms of care.
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Formal representation of health concept: basis for the study of comprehensive care.
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ICT and Education in Nursing
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Tool for normalization of nurses ratings: coded language to natural language.
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Importance of Nursing in educational institutions and their relationship with Nursing Informatics.
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Representation of standardized nursing languages: the concept of process the concept of care cycle.
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Sequencing of nursing knowledge in the virtual environment
