As medical knowledge continues to expand rapidly with demands for more efficient coordination of patient data become paramount, and the pressures for improved practice and application of evidence based medicine increases, medical informatics will have increasing influence in our working lives as clinicians.

Recent white papers have highlighted the need for improved organisation and communication of health information and have offered solutions. Medical informatics is at the center of the overall objectives, linking such areas as knowledge management, guidance on best practice, education of professionals and the public, and the use of new communication and computer technologies. The growing emphasis on the development, collation, and delivery of information in health care means increasing opportunities for clinicians from all specialities to become involved.

The Indian Association for Medical Informatics (IAMI), is a Non Government Organization, started at Hyderabad in 1993 with the help of scientists and doctors who had perceived a need to sensitize the Indian Medical community to the benefits of IT, bring about awareness and greater utilization of Information Technology (IT) in healthcare facilities across the length and breadth of India. The association is now almost 500 strong with its members being mostly IT savvy doctors, software professionals, students and biomedical engineers. The members hold key positions in both major public and private sector health care institutions and constitute the actual decision makers in policy issues relating to Information Technology (IT) applications in healthcare. IAMI has been holding regular conferences and regional meetings and has a highly vocal and vibrant online discussion group where all matters relating to IT in healthcare including telemedicine and e-health are presented and discussed. The association has also started a Journal titled Indian Journal of Medical Informatics or IJMI (ISSN: 0973-0379).

On 10th November 2006 International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) recognised IAMI as the National Member for India. In the Indian Journal of Medical Informatics, all articles are accessible FREE of charge (as HTML files). However, PDF files are available only to IAMI members. The ISSNs of the journal are 0973-0379 and 0973-9254 (Online). It has a PURL (Persistent Uniform Resource Locator) - http://purl.org/fulltext/ijmi/ - that will always point to its active Online Site. IJMI is also being archived at OpenMED@NIC [http://openmed.nic.in/view/subjects/ijmi.html].

Do note that our official Wiki called IAMIWiki has been launched on 25th November 2006. You can visit it by clicking here.

.....once again IAMI extends a warm welcome. We look forward for your inputs and valuable suggestions.
IAMI needs your support.

Address for Correspondence:
Dr. S. B. Gogia, MBBS (AIIMS), MS (AIIMS)
28/31 Old Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi 110060 INDIA
E Mail: sbgogia@amlamed.com | Web: www.amlamed.com
Voice Phone +91-11-25852291, Fax +91-11-25860163, Cell +91-9810126883
E-mail : support@iami.org.in
URL: www.iami.org.in