EFMI Honorary Fellow is an award, and is appointed on the basis of merit on a scientist who was a member of medical community and has delivered long and distinguished service to EFMI.
The Following content is from the Book “HONORARY FELLOWS OF THE EUROPEAN FEDERATION FOR MEDICAL INFORMATICS“ by Prof. Izet Masic, ISBN: 978-9958-720-64-2
| ABBOTT “BUD” WILLIAM
Passed Away: 2011 |
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William “Bud” Abbott (1931-2011), FEFMI, was one of the pioneers of health informatics in the UK. Bud was one of the first generation of health informaticians who started operationally in the mid-1960s. In 1948, Bud joined The London hospital, became involved in the use of machine accounting and explored the use of computing towards the end of the 1950’s. He was instrumental in the development of hospital computing, and played a leading role in both global activities through the International Medical Informatics Association and closer to home with the establishment of the ‘Current Perspectives’ in Health Computing conference and exhibition in 1984 which became the ‘HC’ event which still runs today. By the early 1970s, Bud was already ‘MrNHS Computing’ and led many of the British Computer Society Health Informatics Specialist Groups delegations to European and world events. He encouraged work and mobilized peers and novices to work together through the professional society. He had a knack of facilitating and fixing whilst also being a consummate diplomat. During organization of IMIA MEDINFO Conference in London in 2001, he was included there, playing a vital ‘political’ role in the Local Organizing Committee. He continued to guide health informatics even when operationally retired, frequently appearing in Harrogate at HC congresses and always willing to chair sessions, sometimes at very short notice! He was a mentor to many, especially in the UK and Europe, over the years. His professional legacy will be both the iconic London Hospital System and the position of UK health informatics world-wide. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1987. |
| ANDERSEN STIG KJAER |  |
Stig Kjær Andersen (1947-), FIAHSI, FEFMI, is an associate professor in Medical informatics at Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark, where he is also currently Deputy Head of Department. He graduated in 1974 from Aarhus University, Denmark, as a MSc. in Physics with Computer Science as a subsidiary subject. He also received his PhD degree in physics here in 1977 for his thesis about standing X-ray waves. Until 1980 he has worked as a solid state physicist at Cornell University, US, at Aarhus University, and at CERN, Geneva. Between 1980 and 1984, he joined the Danish cement industry as a materials scientist. Since 1984 he has been employed at Aalborg University; from 1987 as an associate professor at Department of Medical Informatics and Image Analysis (which was renamed Department of Health Science and Technology in 2002). He served here as Head of Department for 6 years (1993-1999), and since 2010 he has been appointed Deputy Head of Department. At Aalborg University his original research area at Department of Medical Informatics and Image as been SPC chair of MIE 2008, held in Gothenburg. He is a core member of the e-Health Observatory (a yearly national conference on Electronic Health Record since 1998). He was the initiator (1996) of Virtual Center for Health Informatics, V-CHI, a cross-disciplinary organization for research and development within health informatics. He has been the managing director of V-CHI from the start in 1996 until 2010. Since 2011 he has headed the research group Tamics (Terminology and Models in Clinical Information Systems). His current research is on modeling complex clinical information systems, the Electronic Health Record and its implementation and the related human-computer interactions, terminologies, knowledge disseminations and system development. He is author and co-author on more than 150 publications in indexed journals. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 2015 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017.
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| ANDERSON JOHN
Passed Away: 2002 |
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John Anderson (1921-2002), MD, MA BSc, MRCP, FRCP, FEFMI, was professor of medicine at King’s College Hospital Medical School. He was essentially an innovator and pioneered developments in metabolic medicine, medical education and medical computing. His background was in history, having obtained a BA with honours in modern history at Durham University in 1942. After the war he took up the opportunity of free education to armed services’ survivors to read medicine at Durham, and graduated MB BS with honours in 1950, also obtaining his MA in modern history in the same year. After house officer appointments at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he was awarded an MRC scholarship in physiology and obtained a BSc with honours in 1952. An MRC research fellowship in Charles Dent’s [Munk’s Roll, Vol.VII, p.148] department at University College London followed, working on calcium metabolism. They described the now well-known use of steroids in the differential diagnosis of hypercalcaemia. In 1956 he returned to Durham as first assistant in the department of medicine and, in the same year, obtained his MD with a thesis using a new technique of phosphate clearance by the kidney. In the following year he was awarded a Rockefeller travelling fellowship to Harvard University and carried out studies on sodium transport in the isolated toad bladder at Massachusetts General Hospital, which he continued to research throughout his subsequent career. He was present at Harvard when ‘real time’ was discovered, a concept which revolutionised the development of computer technology, and which he realised could be applied to medical records with enormous advantage. He returned to Durham in 1957 to assume direction of the artificial kidney unit there. In 1959 he went to King’s as senior lecturer in medicine and consultant in endocrine and metabolic medicine. He was a key figure in the development of renal medicine at King’s during the 1960s when the first acute dialyses were performed. He established and directed the South East region artificial kidney unit at this time, which subsequently became based at Dulwich Hospital. He also set up the first hypertension clinic in London. In 1964 he published, with Sidney Osbourne, the results of his noteworthy and courageous research, the world’s first in-vivo neutron activation analysis. At the Atomic Energy Establishment (Harwell) they had both undergone neutron bombardment and demonstrated that this could be used to calculate the quantities of key elements such as sodium and calcium present in the whole body during life. Previous measurements had only been able to be obtained from the ash of cadavers. In 1965 he was appointed to the newly established chair in medicine at King’s College Hospital Medical School. Although he continued to research in sodium transport and other metabolic projects, his main focus shifted to medical education and medical computing. In medical education, he reorganised the old curriculum, replacing the existing lecture courses with systems-based topic teaching. These integrated clinical subjects with basic medical sciences to illustrate and explain disease. These ideas have now become established throughout the country on the recommendation of the GMC. Between 1967 and 1970, with the support of the Department of Health, he pioneered the development of computerised medical record keeping at King’s. Although there were multiple difficulties, a useable record was achieved, together with a system of automated discharge summaries from the record to general practitioners, which eliminated the usual delays. Unfortunately, the system was too slow, cumbersome and expensive for wider implementation and was not continued. In 1969, he became a fellow of the British Computer Society and chairman of its medical specialist group. He continued to publish and lecture on informatics and electronic medical records throughout the rest of his career. Generations of students will remember his teaching and the way he said ‘compuer’. He would be gratified to learn that technological advances have at last enabled his ideas to become a reality at King’s, 30 years later. The price of being a visionary is that recognition tends to come too late!. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1985.
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| BARBER BARRY |  |
Barry Barber (1933-), FEFMI, was born in Hove, England, and educated at the Friends (Quaker) School Saffron Walden and Christ’s College Cambridge. He studied Mathematics and Physics taking the theoretical option. He was then appointed to Medical Physics Department of The (now Royal) London Hospital and during the next 11 ½ years he learned the professional activities of a medical physicist under the tutelage of Dr Lloyd Kemp. He specialized in precision radiation dosimetry in the course of which he earned his PhD from the University of London. He started exploring the opportunities for using some of the Operational Research techniques developed during WWII to improve the organization of the hospital. He collaborated with William (Bud) Abbott from the Finance Department to make the case for the hospital’s purchase of an Elliott 803 computer in 1964 to enable the hospital’s finance systems to progress as well as to provide a tool for scientific and medical research. He became the Director of the Operational Research Unit in 1966 and remained at the hospital until the NHS re-organization of 1974 took him to the North East Thames Regional Health Authority as Chief Management Scientist. Meanwhile, he looked after the scientific and medical research activities that could be developed, mainly on a “do it yourself” basis. The computer had a immediate access store of 8k of 39 bit words with a backing store of 35mm magnetic film and a 256µsec cycle time. Unknown to us at the time the fast 5-hole paper tape readers and printers must have been based on the technologies developed at Bletchley Park. Three years of exploration of the opportunities provided by the computer was enough for us to outline ideas for a ward and department based Patient Administration for the hospital. This fitted in with the Department of Health’s of “Experimental Real-Time Computer Program” and led to the implementation of the first Patient Administration System in the UK at The London Hospital using a fast Univac, 418/III, message switching system installed in March 1971. The system was developed in modules by hospital staff overseen and directed by a Computer Executive including a Professor of Medicine, Robert Cohen, a senior nurse, Maureen Scholes, and a senior Administrator, Michael Fairey and subsequently David Kenny. Interestingly, the software was run on three different computer platforms and finally de-commissioned after an amazing 36 years. During this time Barry Barber was closely involved with the Institute of Physics, the Operational Research Society and the British Computer Society. He was a founder member of the EFMI, sometime Secretary, Vice President and President as well as Vice President (Europe) of the IMIA and chairman of IMIA Working Group 4 (Data Protection and Security). After leaving The London Hospital his initial focus was on the use of Operational Research techniques to assist with the development of the 5-year Plans for Health Care Services across the Region. Subsequently this developed into the need to address the issues of Data Protection and Security across the Region and for his last decade with the NHS he provided a national focus for this work after being seconded to the newly formed NHS Information Management Center in Birmingham. Naturally, Data Security led directly into issues of standardization and Patient Safety. This move provided opportunities for sharing NHS activities with other European countries in various EU Data Security projects such as SEISMED, ISHTAR, EUROMED-ETS, MEDSEC – an involvement which lasted several years after retirement from the NHS. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1989.
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| BAUD ROBERT |  |
Robert Baud (1942-), FEFMI, is famous medical informatician from Geneva, Switzerland. For long period he was very active in Council of European Federation for Medical informatics (EFMI), as national representative of Switzerland, chair of Working Group: Natural Language Understanding (from MIE 1997 held in Thesaloniki, Greece till 2008), and later as Vice-President of EFMI and President of EFMI from 2004 to 2005. For 2006-2008 Robert Baud represented EFMI in IMIA as Vice-President. Robert Baud was very active in organizations of MIE Conferences, also chair and co-chair of Scientific Program Committees and chair at Sessions at MIE Conferences. As scientist he published a lot of scientific and professional articles in peer reviewed indexed journals. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 2008.
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| BLOBEL BERND |  |
Bernd Blobel, PhD, FACMI, FACHI, FHL7, FEFMI, FIAHSI, gained his first experiences in using computers in 1961 at the Magdeburg Institute of Technology, East Germany. He studied mathematics, technical cybernetics and electrical engineering, physics, informatics and medical informatics in Magdeburg, Halle, Dresden and Berlin. His life sciences endeavor has started in 1969 in the field of biocybernetics (nowadays called bioinformatics). In his PhD thesis he addressed sub-cellular and molecular issues in neurophysiology. For thirty years he performed as CIO of the University Hospital Magdeburg. From 1974-1980 he acted as Head of Laboratory in the area of environmental informatics at the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at the Magdeburg Medical University, before he got appointed as Chair of Medical Information Processing Group. In 1985, he became Founder and Head of the Magdeburg Medical Informatics Department and later on Director of the Institute for Biometry and Medical Informatics at the University of Magdeburg. He launched and chaired the Cancer Registry of the German Federal State Saxony-Anhalt. He was Member of both the Medical and the Informatics Faculty. In 2004, Prof. Dr. Bernd Blobel moved as founder and head of the Health Telematics Project Group to the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen. In 2006, he has been appointed as Founder and Head of the accredited German eHealth Competence Center (eHCC), which has been established at the University Hospital Regensburg. Prof. Dr. Blobel’s national and international career in medical informatics has started after the German reunification in 1990. Joachim Dudeck and Rolf Engelbrecht have been his most supportive mentors, especially encouraging his engagement at EFMI, but also in European projects and international standardization work. Bernd Blobel’s relations to EFMI began in 1995 with the appointment as German Health Informatics Association Representative to EFMI WG2 (nowadays EFMI WG SSE) and IMIA WG4. Within a few years, he developed an international reputation as one of very few medical informaticians who comprehensively manages the fields of interoperability in distributed, component-based, intelligent systems including system modeling, system architectures, ontologies, standardization, EHRs, related security, privacy and safety issues, but also personal health including bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, personal portable devices and their applications. After ten years of international work, he published in 2002 the influential book “Analysis, Design and Implementation of Secure and Interoperable Distributed Health Information Systems” and authored/co-authored a series of international health informatics standards. Prof. Blobel is/ was Chair or Co-chair of several EFMI Working Groups and SPC Chair/Vice-Chair or Core Team Member of many of the MIE as well as of the EFMI Special Topic Conferences. He was responsibly managing and performing the EFMI and IMIA Security Tutorials continuously since 1999. He continuously acted for 20 years as Vice-Chair or Chair of HL7 Germany, was appointed as Chair of the CEN/ISSS eHealth Standardization Focus Group and worked some years as CoChair of the Healthcare Chapter within the Unesco World IT Forum (WITFOR). Prof. Dr. Bernd Blobel is involved in several countries national eHealth or EHR Programs and related initiatives, but also teaching at different countries’ acknowledged universities, in summary supervising ca 70 German and international PhD and PostDoc work. Since 2001, he is/was member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Medical Informatics and European Journal for Biomedical Informatics. He is author/co-author/editor/ co-editor of 38 scientific books as well as author/co-author of ca 500 scientific papers. Prof. Dr. Bernd Blobel became Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI) in 2004, Fellow of HL7 in 2010, and Fellow of the Australasian College of Health Informatics in 2011. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI) in 2015 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017. He is Honorary Member of the EuroMISE Mentoring Association. In 2017, he got appointed as Visiting Professor at the First Medical Faculty of the Charles University Prague, Czech Republic.
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| BRYDEN JOHN
Passed Away: 2012 |
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John Bryden (1932-2012), FEFMI, was Public health consultant in Glasgow. Scotland. John Bryden graduated in medicine at Glasgow University in 1956 and after completing his national service worked in orthopedics and became a GP covering Mosspark and Govan. An early interest in optical character recognition and computer programming led to a three-year fellowship in administrative medicine and a diploma in Social medicine from Edinburgh University. In his final year he was on the commissioning team for Woodside Health Center and set up its computerized patient index, improving preventive medicine. He became medical superintendent for Paisley and District Hospitals in 1971 and completed his MSc in industrial administration with reference to health services at Strathclyde University. Between 1973 and 1981, he led a Health Boards Informatics Team which jointly developed a community health register for a combined population of 1.4 million using optical character recognition. It was known as the Community Health Index (CHI) and the unique identification number is now used on all prescriptions and many medical communications throughout Scotland. His next post was senior epidemiologist with the head injury research team in the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, where he was involved in research on post-head injury morbidity. In 1986 he designed a diary for new doctors starting in the hospital. He continued as epidemiologist and consultant in public and hospital health with Greater Glasgow Health Board and in 1990 brought the European Federation for Medical Informatics Conference to Glasgow. After retiring, he ran his own private company providing expertise and trouble-shooting in his specialty. He helped with the difficulties of starting a needle exchange clinic required because of an outbreak of Hepatitis B, and backed the Heartstart campaign, which encouraged all citizens to learn basic resuscitation. He became a Scottish Blue Badge Tour Guide qualified to guide in French as well as English, thanks to many Brittany holidays. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 2009.
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| ENGELBRECHT ROLF |  |
Rolf Engelbrecht, PhD, FEFMI, FIAHSI, directed the National Research Center for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, Germany. He is a past president of the EFMI (2000-2002) and past vice president of the IMIA (2002-2004). He is chair of ProRec Germany, the national member in EuroRec the European Health Records institute. Dr. Engelbrecht has, over many years, investigated the use of “smart cards” as portable electronic medical records. He is a long-standing scholar, teacher, and author in biomedical informatics. Professor Engelbrecht is elected as an International Associate in recognition of the broad scope of impact of his efforts in advancing the art and science of biomedical informatics in Europe and worldwide. In his last position before retirement in July 2009 he was head of the department MEDIS (Medical Information Systems) at the Helmholtz Center Munich (German Research Center for Environmental Health). Dr. Engelbrecht is associated Professor for medical informatics at the State University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Chisinau/Moldova. He is teaching at Siberian State Medical University (SSMU) Medical Informatics as member of the faculty also since 2008. He is well experienced in systems analysis, design, development, implementation of health care information systems and knowledge bases as well as in patient records. Dr. Engelbrecht has authored and edited more than 170 articles and books in the field of Medical informatics. He has been and is on the editorial board of some well established scientific journals. Prof Engelbrecht is honorary member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences and European scientific societies. In 2005 he was elected as International Affiliate of ACMI (American College of Medical Informatics). He is founding member of the European center for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (EuroMISE) in Prague and founding member of the Koch-Metschnikow-Forum in Berlin/St.Petersburg. Dr. Rolf Engelbrecht has successfully participated in several EU and National R&D-projects as a coordinator and partner: Precise–Medical workstation (co-cordinator), Diabcard–Chip cards for Diabetes Care (coordinator), DiabCare – Quality assurance in Diabetes care (partner), Diadoq-Knowledge based quality assurance (coordinator), ProGuide Clinical Guidelines (coordinator), ByMedCard – Cards in the Bavarian Medical Network (coordinator), etc. He is founding member of: BYMI German professional society of medical informatics, ISSHAC international society for system science in health care, etc.. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 2012 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017.
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| GELL GÜNTHER |  |
Günther Gell (1941- ), FEFMI, Prof. emeritus for Medical Informatics and Dean emeritus for Doctoral Studies at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, Honorary Fellow of the EFMI, Dr. phil for Theoretical Physics of Univeristy of Graz. G. Gell started work in Medical Informatics with the development of documentation systems for Pathology and Radiology based on free text in 1968. Subsequently Medical Information Systems became the focus of his scientific and practical work including all the steps/processes oft the life cycle of such systems: planning, concept, implementation, introduction (for clinical routine use), maintenance and finally shutdown or transit to a new system. All of these steps have been the subject of scientific analysis resulting in numerous publications in international scientific papers. The goal was always to produce systems that have an impact on clinical medicine supporting and integrating patient care, routine operation and scientific research. Pioneering work was the development of large scale integrated Picture Archiving, Communication and Storage Systems (PACS). Besides his scientific and routine work (being responsible for the routine operation of clinical information systems) he was active in the organization and definition of Medical informatics as a scientific discipline and as an organizational entity in health care. He founded the Working Group (Arbeitsgemeinschaft) for Medical Informatics in Austria which became the Austrian member in EFMI and IMIA. He was for many years the Austrian representative in EFMI and IMIA and also a Board member (treasurer) of EFMI. He was a member of the program committee of many international conferences, a member oft he editorial board of: The International Journal of Medical Informatics, der Radiologe and Methods of Information in Medicine. He served as a reviewer and evaluator of EU and national projects and also in different standardization bodies (CEN, ACR-NEMA). On the national scale he was member of advisory commissions of the government concerning medical informatics in such topics as: telemedicine, standardization, PACS and data protection (how to balance the needs of patient privacy, patient care, research and public health in particular with respect to the introduction of lifelong electronic health records).. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1991.
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| GREMY FRANCOIS
Passed Away: 2014 |
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Francois Grémy (1929–2014), FEFMI, was Professor who had a dual curriculum vitae. In the domain of information sciences he completed three Master degrees in Physical Sciences (1948), Mathematics (1948), and Statistics (1961). As a physician he passed the Paris resident fellows’ competitive examination, the “Internat de Paris”, in 1953 and obtain a specialty in neurophysiology. In 1958, at the age of 29, he was appointed as tenured professor in biophysics at the Faculty of Medicine of Tours, and two years later in 1960 as professor in biophysics at the Pitié-Salpêtrière School of Medicine in Paris. Between 1966 and 1971, François Grémy published five comprehensive textbooks in the three scientific areas where his different training mutually contributed: biophysics, biomathematics, and biostatistics. Very soon, François recognized the key role played by information sciences in medicine and initiated at PitiéSalpêtrière in 1966 a curriculum on the medical applications of computing techniques. To foster research in information sciences François Grémy created in 1969 the INSERM Unit U88 entitled Informatics and Statistics methodology in Medicine. This unit was going to be the framework for his close collaborators to develop, not only clinical informatics, but also clinical research, epidemiology, health informatics, statistics, and decision support systems. As a recognition of this involvement he was appointed in 1970 as professor of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at the Pitié-Salpêtrière School of Medicine. In 1967, Professor Grémy established within the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) the Technical Committee 4 (TC4) on Medical informatics. The first meeting of TC4 was held in Paris in April 1968. A dozen nations were represented and François Grémy was elected as president. During his presidency (1967-1973), François Grémy initiated within TC4 several working groups that represented many emerging subfields for this new discipline. In 1973, François Grémy negotiated during the preparation of the IFIP meeting in Stockholm the creation of a separate structure devoted to the healthcare field. The result was the first MEDINFO 74 held in Stockholm at the same time and same location as the IFIP meeting (August 5-10). François Grémy acted as the chair of the MEDINFO 74 Program Committee. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) was constituted as a Special Interest Group of IFIP. In 1984, François Grémy was appointed as Professor of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics in the University of Montpellier-Nîmes, and chair of the Medical Information Department of the Lapeyronie University hospital. He published his first comprehensive textbook on Medical informatics in 1987. However, he progressively focused his research on health informatics, the assessment of medical informatics technology, and finally on public health. He was appointed in 1990 as Professor of Public Health at the Montpellier-Nîmes Faculty of Medicine. He became a member of the French National Committee for Public Heath, strongly engaged in the prevention of tobacco, alcohol dependence, and the social integration of autistic patients. François Grémy is recognized at the international level for his key contributions to the development of Medical Informatics and the birth of IMIA. In 1996, he became with Jan van Bemmel one of the two first Europeans recognized as Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. In 2004, he received during the San Francisco MEDINFO meeting the first IMIA Award of Excellence. In France, in addition to being recognized as the father of Medical Informatics in his country, François Grémy has left a strong heritage for the development of public health. He has influenced the decision makers with his political engagement for prevention, social equity, solidarity, and against any clinical form of racism. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1987.
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| HANSEN ROLF
Passed Away: 1993 |
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Rolf Hansen (1931-1993), FEFMI, was one of pioneers of Medical informatics from Oslo, Norway. He was an organized and pragmatic medical informatician who developed respected and pioneering health information systems at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. At the time of his death he had just become the President of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) after having played an active and important role in the development of the EFMI since participating in its foundation 1976 in Copenhagen. He had been a member of the Executive Board from 1982 to 1986, Secretary from 1989 to 1990 and Vice President from 1991 to 1992. He took responsibility as the Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the very successful MIE-1988 congress in Oslo. He also worked in the Editorial board of Medical Informatics from its inception. Rolf Hansen will be recognized as one of the Medical informatics experts who have had great contribution to the development of Medical Informatics worldwide. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1991.
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| HASMAN ARIE |  |
Arie Hasman, FEFMI, FIAHSI, emeritus professor in Medical Informatics. Arie Hasman was born February 1, 1945. He graduated in Technical Physics from the Technical University, Delft in 1968. In 1971 he obtained his PhD at this university. From 1971 until 1974 he worked in the department of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine of the St. Radboud hospital in Nijmegen. He then moved to the Free University in Amsterdam to work in the Medical Informatics department chaired by Jan van Bemmel. Here he supervised several PhD students doing research in the areas of signal analysis (EEG analysis and sleep staging, serial ECG analysis), database management systems for enabling research in radiotherapy and research concerning the appraisal of computerized medical interviews. He was also involved in education in medical informatics where he participated in the block course Medical Informatics for which he developed several educational packages. In 1985 he was appointed professor in Medical Informatics at the University of Maastricht (then called the University of Limburg), in the faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he stayed until 2004. He became head of the newly established Medical Informatics department. Here several packages for medical Informatics education for both medical students and health sciences students were developed. He was involved in research covering a number topics: DRGs, interobserver variation in the assessment of fetal heart rate recordings, the discriminative value of patient characteristics for upper-gastrointestinal endoscopy, telecommunication in healthcare, estimation of cardiac deformation from marker tracks, the granularity of medical narratives and its effect on the speed and completeness of information retrieval, decision support system using computer interpreted guidelines, decision support for anti-epileptic drug treatment and for clinical laboratory capacity planning, a reminder system for general practitioners, development of diagnostic reference frames for epileptic seizures, graphical information retrieval by browsing meta-information, automatic classification of diagnostic reports, development of a Nursing Minimum Dataset for the Netherlands, an electronic record for stroke patients, simulation of processes in hospital departments, assessing the importance of features for multi-layer perceptrons, patient related information needs and intention based guideline systems. He was involved in a number of European projects. In the context of AIM (Advanced Informatics in Medicine) his department obtained funding for two projects: KAVAS (research in the area of knowledge acquisition) and OPENLABS (research in the area of open clinical laboratory systems). He was chairman of the Concerted Action EDUCTRA. He also participated in the IT-Eductra accompanying measure of the 4th framework program of the EU. In the Erasmus program the department was involved in the Master Course on Medical Informatics, held in Athens. He lectured in Prague in the context of the TEMPUS project EUROMISE. From 1991 until 2005 he was also part-time professor at the Technical University Eindhoven, where he lectured and also supervised a number of PhD students. In 2004 he became head of the department of Medical Informatics at the AMC, University of Amsterdam. He has supervised 54 candidates who received their PhD in one of the above mentioned universities. He was external examiner for the program in Medical Informatics of the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, of the University of Surrey, UK and of the University Colleges of Dublin and Galway, Ireland. He gave lectures in Prague and Athens. He was an EFMI and IMIA Board member. He was Scientific Program chair of MIE 2000, held in Hannover. Germany and Scientific Program co-chair of Medinfo 2001, held in London, UK. He was one of the authors of the IMIA Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics. He was also involved in the development of a procedure for IMIA accreditation of health informatics programs and in the evaluation of this procedure. He was Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Medical Informatics and editorial board member of Computer methods and programs in biomedicine, Methods of information in medicine and The Journal of Informatics in Primary Care. In 2010 he retired but he is still active in the field of medical informatics. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 2010 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017. In 2017 Arie was appointed Visiting Professor at the Charles University in Prague.
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| HOFDIJK JACOB |  |
Jacob Hofdijk (1946-), PhD, FEFMI, was trained at the Rijks Universiteit Groningen in 1974, as Doctoral Business Economics with a main focus on Systems Approach and informatics. In May 1974 he started his career in Health Care at the University Hospital Leiden with the development of the BAZIS Integrated Hospital Information System. In 1979 he became project manager of the first DRG project in the Netherlands. This was the start of his involvement in the paradigm shift of health care management. In 2005 he left HISCOM to be more active in the world of Casemix in the Netherlands, as partner in Casemix, Special Adviser to the Dutch Casemix office and as consultant to the Ministry of Health. Since 2003 he is involved in the development of integrated disease management programs for the most common chronic conditions, like Diabetes, COPD, Vascular. The focus is to create a patient oriented approach involving self management and a multidisciplinary coordination model. This is the base for outcome oriented population funding. International Organizations: Emeritus Secretary General of Patient Classification Systems International. Jacob Hofdijk became a member of EFMI Council since 1994 as The Netherlands national representative, later as Working Group chair, and Board member. He served EFMI as Secretary, Vice-President and President (2009-2010) During period 2011-2012 he represented EFMI in IMIA as Vice-President. Also, he chaired a lot of sessions and committees at MIE Conferences. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 2012.
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| JORGENSEN MOGENS |
Mogens Jorgensen, FEFMI, was one of founders of European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI) in 1975 together with Jan Roukens from Holland and Jan van Egmond from Belgium. They made Statute of EFMI and formed Preliminary Executive Group of national representatives from several European countries which in that time had national Societies of Medical Informatics. As delegates from 10 countries (UK, Italy, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, FR Germany, Holland, Belgium and Finland) on September 10th 1976 they established the Federation of the European Medical Informatics Societies, later EFMI, supported by two representatives of WHO European headquarters: M. Sedeuilh and Alfred Weber. At the meeting as Chairman of EFMI inaugural meeting was elected Mogens Jorgensen, and as Secretary Barry Barber. Most important direction of works which have been developed by Mogen Jorgensen and his team was patient record systems, data security, nursing informatics, communication standards and common terminology.
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| MANTAS JOHN |  |
John (Ioannis) Mantas (1954-), FEFMI, FIAHSI, is Director of the Laboratory of Health Informatics and Full Professor of Health Informatics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He graduated with BSc (Honours) from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Manchester in 1979, and on 1980 completed his master’s degree with specialization in Information Technology and Telecommunications. He acquired his PhD in Computer Science in 1983. Professor John Mantas began his academic career firstly at the University of Manchester and then from 1986 onwards at the School of Health Sciences of the University of Athens. Today Professor Mantas is the Director of the Laboratory of Health Informatics and Director of Postgraduate Studies in “Health Informatics and Health Care Management” program of the University of Athens. He established the first Master’s program in Europe in ‘Health Informatics’ on 1990. His current research interests are in health information systems, patient safety, biomedical informatics, nursing informatics, management of healthcare, and education in biomedical and health informatics. He is the organiser from 2002 of the Annual International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare. He was the President of the European Federation for Medical Informatics for the period 2010-2012. He was Vice–President of IMIA from 2012 to 2014. He was elected as Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Nursing of the University of Athens from 1996 to 2001 and Dean at the School of Health Sciences of the University of Athens from 2001 to 2005. He was appointed member of the Governing Board of the Cyprus University of Technology from 2004, Dean of the School of Health Sciences from 2006 to 2009, and he was the Vice-Rector of the same University from 2009 to 2010. He was also appointed member (2009-2013) of the Governing Board of the University of Central Greece responsible for the newly established department of Biomedical Informatics. He is the President of the Biomedical and Health Informatics Association of Greece, which is member of EFMI and IMIA. Professor Mantas is leading many local and European research programs in the field of Health Informatics. He is the author of more than 250 publications. He has supervised more than 250 Master’s theses and 30 doctoral dissertations. He is currently lecturing in Introduction to Informatics, Health Informatics, Hospital Information Systems, Biomedical Informatics and Technology, and Special Issues in Biomedical Informatics Research. He is the author and the main editor of ten books published by international publishers in English and six books in Greek. He is serving in many international scientific publications as associate editor and reviewer. For many years served as advisor and reviewer in European Commission panels of experts. He also led many European and International initiatives in the educational field of Biomedical and Health Informatics. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 2015 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017.
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| MASIC IZET |  |
Izet M. Masic (1952-), MD, PhD, FEFMI, FACMI, FIAHSI, FWAAS, was born in Gracanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H). He is pioneer of Medical informatics in B&H and Balcan countries as first MD who earned MSc and PhD in Medical informatics field. He graduated at Faculty of Medicine of Sarajevo University in 1976 and notified his medical diploma at Faculty of Medicine at Innsbruck University (Austria). He was a postgraduate student at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1981/1982. Title of his MSc thesis was “Evaluation of information system of family health” and PhD thesis “Evaluation of computerized information system in primary health care”, both earned from Faculty of Medicine of University of Sarajevo in 1985 and 1990. After specialist’s exam in 1982 he worked as physician in Health center in Sarajevo and assistant of Social medicine at Medical faculty of Sarajevo University. He became lecturer at Nursing college in 1986 and since 1989 he was developed into professor on the same institution. Izet Masic become assistant professor of Social medicine in 1991. In 1992 Izet Masic established Cathedra for Medical Informatics at Medical Faculty of University of Sarajevo and past through all phases, from assistant professor in 1992, to full professor in 1998. In 2002 he became full professor of Family medicine at Faculty of Medicine of University of Sarajevo. In 2011 he became full professor of Management in Quality of Health at Dubrovnik International University (DIU). In the year 2012 he become full professor of Health Management at Faculty of Health Sciences of University of Zenica. As author Izet Masic published over 300 papers in peer reviewed indexed medical journals and over 500 papers he has published as co-author. Also, he is author of over 40 books and monographs. Izet Masic has been Editor-in-chief of five indexed biomedical journals (last 20 years he edited: Medical Archives, Materia Socio-Medica and Acta Informatica Medica journals). In the year 2009 Izet Masic formed Academy of Medical Sciences of BiH and became first President of Academy. He established Society for Medical Informatics in B&H in 1988. Izet Masic is member of Council of EFMI (1994-present), General Assembly of IMIA (1994-present), International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (2005-2012), Governing Board of European Association for Public Health (EUPHA) (2000-present), and European Association of Information Technology Managers (2007-2015). From 2012 to 2015 he has been member of Council of European Association of Science Editors (EASE). In the year 2016 Izet Masic has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) and Fellow of American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI). Prof Masic has organized over 50 scientific and professional conferences and among those 10 during the war time in Sarajevo. Prof Izet was pioneer of development of Distance Learning in Medical Education in SouthEastern Europe (Cantonal and Federal Governmental project – 2002-2007). Masic chaired 22nd European congress of Medical Informatics (MIE2009) held in Sarajevo. He received a lot of domestic and international awards. He was actively involved as speaker and session chairman at various conferences in Public health, Medical informatics, Medical publishing and Family medicine worldwide. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 2016 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017. |
| MCNAIR PETER |  |
Peter McNair, FEFMI, is Honorary Fellow at EFMI since 2004. He coordinates project on Health Professional Information in EHR H:S Copenhagen Hospitals Cooperation, and Copenhagen County Health Care Administration. His recent project is Technical Project Manager and his fields of research include Health Information Systems, Laboratory Information & Production Support Systems, Electronic Health Records and Clinical Guidelines and Protocols. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 2004.
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| MIHALAS GEORGE |  |
Gheorghe I Mihalas, PhD, FEFMI, FIAHSI, graduated in 1967 University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, specialty biophysics and started as an assistant professor at Faculty of Medicine in Timisoara. A Fulbright scholarship in 1972/73 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond brought him close to the use of computers in medical research. Back home he had several collaborations for promoting the use of computers by doctors and supported the initiative to organize the first national symposium of medical informatics in 1977, which continued yearly since then. After getting his PhD in Physics at University of Bucharest, he succeeded to introduce the first course of medical informatics to medical students in Romania at the Faculty of Medicine in Timisoara in 1984, with a good support from Jan H van Bemmel and Bernard Richards. He participated at several conferences organized before 1989 in Prague by Jana Zvárová, which offered a good opportunity of several East European scientists to meet their peers from western countries. As a co-author of a handbook of Medical Informatics, he won the Prize of the Romanian Academy in 1990. The wave of freedom from last decade of the twentieth century in Eastern Europe opened the doors for extended collaborations. Medical informatics became a mandatory discipline in all medical faculties in Romania and, since 1992, the doctoral level has also been introduced, having prof Mihalas as coordinator. The newly formed Romanian Society of Medical Informatics RSMI joined EFMI and IMIA in 1994 and, as a representative of Romania, prof Mihalas attended almost all MIE’s and MEDINFO’s since then. The same year he became a member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences. In 1998 he was elected as president of RSMI and in 2001 he was nominated for one year as CEO of the National Center for Health Statistics and Informatics of the Ministry of Health, involving him also in national strategies on healthcare informatics. The activity of prof Mihalas in EFMI was consistent, being the chair of the LOC of the first STC organized by EFMI in Bucharest in 2001 entitled “Healthcare Telematics in Countries in Transition”. The series of Special Topic Conferences, initiated by Rolf Engelbrecht continued yearly since then. In 2002 prof Mihalas was elected as secretary of EFMI, followed by positions of vice-president in 2004 and president in 2006. His slogan as president was “Let’s make EFMI more visible”. He introduced the institutional membership of EFMI and organized the STC 2006 in Timisoara entitled “Integrating Biomedical Information: from e-Cell to e-Patient”. As IMIA vice-president for EFMI he initiated the trilateral convention EFMI-AMIA-APAMI in collaboration with Don Detmer, Jack Li and Reinhold Haux. In 2012 he was elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI and initiated the Ethics task force of EFMI together with Assa Reichert. As a member of IMIA task force on Medical Informatics history, chaired by Casimir Kulikowski, he organized several workshops and panels on medical informatics history. This task force became an IMIA WG on biomedical informatics history, awarded twice with IMIA prize for WGs. He was an active participant in several medical informatics conferences, published almost 200 papers, was a reviewer for several conferences and journals and also an expert of the European Commission. In 2017 he was elected as a founding member of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics, initiated by IMIA. Academic background: MS (1967), PhD (1979) in physics, specialty biophysics, University of Bucharest; MS (1978) in mathematics-informatics, University of Timisoara; Fulbright Scholarship (1972-73) Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond Va. Professional experience: – teaching biophysics, medical informatics and bioinformatics since 1967; CEO Center for Health Information and Statistics, Ministry of Health (2001); expert for European Commission since 2002. Titles, positions: “Gheorghe Marinescu” Prize of the Romanian Academy, 1990; member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences (since 1994); president of RSMI Romanian Society of Medical Informatics (1998-2010); president of EFMI European Federation for Medical Informatics (200608); honorary fellow of EFMI (2012); Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics in 2017.
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| MOEN ANNE |  |
Anne Moen is full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo, Oslo Norway, and adjunct Professor, University of South east Norway, Drammen, Norway. She is director of UiO:eColab, Institute for health and society, a research lab supporting technology mediated complex patient focused interventions in the primary care or the home setting, and multidisciplinary teamwork of health professionals, patients and their families to sustain health and wellbeing. She is the founder and CEO of Appetitus AS, a start-up company to develop, market and sustain the APPetitus nutrition app. Her focus in health informatics research and innovation is design, user involvement, content development and deployment of information systems, emphasizing capacity building and citizen empowerment and engagement with patient facing apps and accompanying services. This includes participating and leading important and innovative projects such as “ICT-based information resources for patients and relatives, demonstrated through the design of the prototype REPARERE (learning REsources for PAtients and RElatives during REcovery)” (2002 – 2005) (post doc grant), “Developing Knowledge-Practices Laboratory” (KP-Lab), Integrated Project, EU’s 6th framework” (2006 – 2012), “eLearning resources I and II” for Comprehensive assessment and interventions with complex, composite care requirements, (2012 – 2014), “Strategic And Collaborative Capacity Development in Ethiopia and Africa (SACCADE)” (2013 – 2018) and “EXCEL SMART – Exceeding Learning through Strategic Mobility and Academic Partnership” (2018 – 2021), which are collaboration programs between the University of Oslo and Jimma University in Ethiopia. The overall goals are to build a strategic “map” for institutional capacity building and human resources for health development at College of Public Health & Medicine Science, Jimma University (JU) and systematically implement this over the next 30 years, establishing JU as a “hub” in Africa. Her most recent projects includes also “APPETITT (Application on Nutrition – Intervention for health and thrive)” (2013 – 2017) and “CAPABLE: empower citizens to active use of personal health information” (2018 – 2021), seeking to demonstrate benefits of opportunities for citizens to “collect, complement, collaborate and control” all relevant personal health information at the citizen’s discretion. I have published more than 100 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals. She has a sustained research interest in tools and services for citizens’ empowerment, engagement and development of eHealth literacy. She has directed the development of several digital learning resources for patients and professionals, and MOOCs to build capacity in Norway and internationally. The MOOC “How to write a PhD proposal”, developed in collaboration with colleagues in Ethiopia and Norway as a deliverable in EXCEL SMART, launched May 2019 with more than 3600 registered participants is an example of resources for wider research capacity – exchange across settings.In 2014 the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Oslo awarded me the Digitalis Purpurea, in recognition of leadership to develop eLearning resources for the new Master’s Program in Advanced Nursing Practice (2014). I received the Highly Commended Awards by the EmeraldLitariNetwork, for the article by Nes, S. & Moen, A., (2010). Constructing standards – A study of nurses negotiating with multiple modes of knowledge. Journal of Work place Learning 22 (6):376-393, and the Best poster award, together with Dr. Jenna M. Maquard for “What do consumers do with health information at home?”, presented at TTeC’2004,Citizen Participation in e-Health; challenges for research, technologies and health care organizations. In 2019, I received the TrilliumII prize on most innovative use of components of the International Patient Summary, on behalf of the CAPABLE project.Anne is founding member of the Norwegian Nurses Organisation’s special interest group on Nursing informatics and eHealth (1998), and past chair of the Norwegian Society for Medical Informatics (2009-2016). She was EFMI president (2014 – 2016), and is the immediate Past President of EFMI and IMIA-EFMI Vice President (2016-2018). She was active for EFMI as organizer of several important events, starting as LOC – SPC liaison for MIE2011, hosted in Oslo, Norway, SPC member for MIE2012 (Pisa), MIE2014 (Istanbul) and MIE 2015 (Madrid). She served as SPC chair for MIE2018 hosted in Gothenburg, Sweden. During her tenure as EFMI president she was actively involved in planning the STC and MIE conferences. She was EFMI representative in the EU eHealth stakeholder group (mandate 2015 – 2019), and lead rapporteur for the task force “Citizens – health data” pointing out a vision that all Europeans should be able to “collect, curate and control” all their health data for actively use and empowerment. She was elected fellow of ACMI (American College of Medical Informatics) in 2015, and is founding member of the IAHSI (International Academy for Health Sciences Informatics) – “the Academy”, 2017. She was member of the IAHSI transition team to set up key functions and election of the inaugural board of “the Academy” (2018). She is elected EFMI Honorary Fellow (2019).She is member of the EFMI AC2 working committee, set up to by the EFMI Council in 2017 to revise and refocus EFMI’s efforts in certification, accreditation and professional recognition of health informatics expertise in Europe. Starting in 2019, she is bringing these experiences to the WHO Euro region to advocate for the necessity to include digital health competencies in health care professionals’ curriculums and health workforce capacity development/ life-long learning. Anne Moen is an RN (1985), has a degree in business administration (1989), master degree in nursing science (1996) from University of Oslo, Norway, and PhD in social sciences (Dr. polit)– specialization in health informatics (2002) awarded from University of Oslo, Norway. She was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA (2002), visiting scholar to University of California, San Francisco, USA (1998, 2000), visiting scholar to University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA (2003-2008), adjunct professor at University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA (2015-2017), and visiting professor to Brigham-Women’s Hospital, 2015.
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| NORDBERG RAGNAR
Passed Away: 2020 |
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Ragnar Nordberg, PhD, FEFMI, was Chair of the MIE 2008 organizing committee and is currently member of the EFMI Council. From 2015 active as treasurer of EFMI. He is CIO Emeritus of Sahlgrenska University Hospital, CEO for JMP R&D AB and member of SFMI (Swedish Federation of Medical Informatics) since 1979. He has been Chairman and Secretary of the Board of SFMI during different periods. His field of research includes Hospital information systems, in particular; Security, Integrity and Ethics of medical informatics. He is also a member of the EFMI working group for security in medical informatics and was active as Chairman of the CEN/TC 251 WG III Swedish mirror-group until 2009. He also participated in CEN/TC 251 WG III and ISO/TC 215 WG 4 for many years. He has been elected as Honorary fellow of EFMI in 2018.
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| O’MOORE RORY |  |
Rory O’Moore, PhD, FEFMI, was professor of Healtcare Informatics in Dublin, Ireland. The O’Moore Medal is awarded by the Healthcare Informatics Society of Ireland to individuals or organizations that have made a major contribution to Healthcare Informatics. The award is named after Professor Rory O’Moore, who received the award in 2003 when it was inaugurated by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. This award has been named after Professor Rory O’Moore, Chairman of the Section of Healthcare Informatics in the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland and past chairman of HISI and the President of European Federation for Medical Informatics -EFMI (1987-1990). The award was inaugurated by An Taoiseach Mr. Bertie Ahern T.D in 2003 who presented the medal to Prof. O’Moore for his contribution to the development of Healthcare Informatics in Ireland. Since then, the Healthcare Informatics Society of Ireland awards the O’Moore Medal as appropriate to individuals or organizations that have made a major contribution to Healthcare Informatics. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1988.
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| PETERSON HANS
Passed Away: 2021 |
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Hans Peterson, PhD, FEFMI, FIAHSI, became a certified physician in Sweden in 1958 and was awarded a doctorate in Medicine in 1967. He was an ophthalmology fellow at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm University, and was appointed to faculty positions in Ophthalmology and Medical Informatics at the Karolinska in the late 1970’s. At the time of his election to the College Dr. Peterson was an internationally prominent and prolific author, with more than 100 published papers. He served as editor for textbooks on Communication Networks in Health Care and Human-Computer Communications in Health Care. He has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including Methods in Information in Medicine, Medical Informatics, Lecture notes in Medical Informatics, and the Journal of Clinical Computing. He has served on numerous government committees in Sweden, helping to create legislation for patient records and the creation of national information structures for health care. Dr. Peterson was named an honorary fellow of the European Federation for Medical Informatics and a fellow of the International Medical Informatics Association. He also served as President of IMIA from 1983 through 1986. His election as an International Associate of the College recognizes these sustained achievements. In 1983, after three years as president elect, Hans Peterson became president of IMIA. “What I remember best”, he says, “is that there was no money.” MEDINFO ‘83 had diminished already limited funds, and money was simply not available for what was needed for MEDINFO ‘86 and subsequent activities. IMIA’s officers ended up providing IMIA with free services, from printing and stationery to mailing and telephones. Grants to working conferences were impossible, and IMIA’s officers had to spend almost all their time on finances. The final blow came when IMIA closed its permanent secretariat in Amsterdam and its small remaining treasury vanished. The bottom line was “very little time for accomplishments and achievements. The goal was to survive.” Now, after completing his 18th year as national representative for Sweden in 1993, Peterson continues to work for the recognition and acceptance of Medical Informatics. In his view, growing decentralization makes standardization critical. For Peterson, “an international body free from political and governmental influence is absolutely necessary. In this body we have to cooperate also with the industry and get a mutual understanding that cooperation is the only way out.” He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1988, and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics in 2017.
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| REICHERT ASSA
Passed Away: 2015 |
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Assa Reichert (1943-2015), FEFMI, directed the first computer Department in the Israel Ministry of Health. Assa holds a BA in Life sciences and a MA in Life science s and Computer science from Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He was assistant director of Sheba Medical Center, the largest in Israel, and VP of COMET, an Israeli-American software house specializing in medical institution management & EMR software. He served as consultant to the MOH. Assa was appointed aa a member of EFMI Council since 1994 as Israel national representative, later as Working Group chair, and Board member. He served EFMI as President (2002-2003), and represented EFMI in IMIA as Vice-President (2003-2005). Also, he chaired a lot of sessions and committees at MIE Conferences. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 2010.
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| REICHERTZ LEO PETER
Passed Away: 1987 |
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Peter Leo Reichertz (1930-1987), PhD, FEFMI, was a physician and university professor in the field of medical computer science. He studied physics, mathematics and medicine at the different universities throughout the Europe, in universities of Göttingen, Köln, Geneva, Munich and Bonn. During that period he persuaded PhD and directed himself toward internal medicine. His main scientific activity in this period was in the field of cardiology. The experiences in practice and the emerging possibilities of data processing have convinced him of the importance of computer science in medicine and made him a pioneer of medical computer science. His path led him in time from 1966 to 1969 to USA at the University of Texas and the University of Missouri. There Reichertz Peter led the radiological computer research was responsible in a project to create a medical information system in the hospital worked and was director of a general university computer center. In 1969 he returned to Germany and took over the Department of Medical computer science at the Medical School of Hannover, which he designed from the ground up. From that Hanover was one of the centers of medical computer science, nationally and internationally. Peter Reichertz ambition was to reject the medical computer science closely to the core computer science and to create an understanding of the problems and possibilities of each other’s discipline and bring a discussion. The means to do so were joint meetings with the Society for computer science and GMDS to an Advanced Course in Medical Informatics. The external sign is that of him initiated certificate ‘Medical Informatics’, which is awarded jointly by the GMDS and GI. From 1975 to 1988 he was also a lecturer at the Technical University of Braunschweig. He was 1976/1977 President of the GMDS, co-founder of the IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association) and EFMI (European Federation for Medical Informatics), as its first president. His work on the international level, the term ‘Medical Informatics’ and its contents significantly affected. In his honor, Peter L. Reichertz Instituts für Medizinische Informatik was formed in 2007. It was founded by the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina on two locations, in Braunschweig and Hannover. Founding goal was the formation of a regional cluster of excellence. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1987.
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| REMOND ANTOINE
Passed Away: 1998 |
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Antoine Remond (1917-1998), FEFMI, is a French researcher, neurologist and clinical electrophysiologist. He is considered one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience He was born in Argentina in 1917 in a scientific family. After his graduation as a doctor, his parents suggested that he “do his medicine”, seeing his fascination by brain and its waves. His father, a chemist, remembers an uncle in a hospital in Paris who was interested in similar problematics. Remond remembered an invitation by his parents uncle, Alphonse Baldwin, Professor of General Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, who also had a service at the Hôtel-Dieu. After hearing for work of Hans Berger, he went to see him. Then, on his return to Paris, he found ways to implement instrumentation electroencephalography, one of the first in France. When Remond was the first year of medicine at Paris in 1936, he was working at his uncle’s hospital and learning about the pathology with the highly respected and feared anatomy professor André Hovelacque (1880-1939). When war broke out, Remond managed to escape. He spent the war hidden in the pathology laboratory in Sainte Anne and discovered electroencephalographic experimentation with his wife, Fischgold who have already published some articles with A. Baldwin, R. and J. Caussé Lerique. On a device with two feathers and another four feathers, the laboratory technician is able to achieve a six feathers; the Faraday cage. Remond also had the opportunity to work at the end of the war with Pierre Puech, in its new service neuro-psycho-surgery Sainte-Anne supported by Baldwin, where he experimented with psycho-surgery, but also the location of tumors brain by electroencephalography, after the pioneering work of Grey Walter, and patients with encephalitis or epilepsy. The first International Congress of Electroencephalography held in London in 1947, and gave Remond opportunity to visit the laboratory of Grey Walter in Bristol, pioneer of electroencephalography, in which he met the neurologist Marseille, Henri Gastaut, who practices electroencephalography for the clinical diagnosis of epilepsy. In 1948, the French society for electroencephalography formed and Remond became its secretary. In 1957-1958 Remond opened a private practice and conducted experiments in treatment of parkinsonism and stereotactic ablative stimulation, like those practiced in the same period. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 1985.
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| ROGER FRANCE FRANCIS |  |
Francis Roger France (1941-), MD, PhD, FEFMI, FIAHSI, was born in Etterbeek (Brussels), Belgium in a family that contributed to open his mind to health, economics and information processing. Francis Roger France worked as Associate Chief of Service for General Internal Medicine (St Luc Hospital in Brussels (1988-2006) and President of the School of Public Health of the U.C.L. (1995-2001). As Professor, Francis was a teacher of the first courses of Medical informatics in Belgium (since 1968, at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Louvain, U.C.L). He is an author of a book “Médecine et Informatique” (Maloine, Paris, 1979), largely diffused in French speaking countries, a basis for students notes and an introduction for the public. Also he is author of recommendations issued by the Council of Europe in 1984 for education and training in Medical informatics in Europe. Professor Francis contributed to the Development of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in the Center for Medical Informatics. (UCL) and trials for archiving medical records on computerized systems, using a unit record by patient. He is author of the European MBDS (Minimum Basic Data Set) allowing to register all diagnoses by hospital stay and by patient, enabling to link diagnoses to activities and costs, to estimate severity of cases and to measure quality of care. (document EUR 7162, EEC 1981) (Thèse d’agrégation de l’enseignement supérieur). He is president of the AIM (Advanced Informatics in Medicine) Requirements Board of the European Commission that led to a large number of AIM international projects. He contributed to the development of an infrastructure for research in Medical Informatics in Europe (FRF and G. Santucci, Springer Verlag, Berlin, New York, 1991). He participated to EEC research projects: (EHR, security, DRGs, telemedicine) and Information analysis of the diagnostic process (from case studies of the NEJM) in order to apply it in Internal medicine, in association of a modified version of the “Problem oriented medical record” proposed by L. Weed; Methods and issues for security in health informatics. His special interest was for applications of Telemedicine, especially in case of major disasters (Tsunami) and – How to organize health practice in future? Professor Francis was: a founding member and President of Scientific Societies in Medical Informatics; the MIM (Belgium), EFMI past President and Honorary Fellow; IMIA founding member and Vice President; Expert to Ministers of Health and Social Security in Belgium who introduced a new financing system for hospital inpatients; President of the Commission Norms for informatics in the health care sector; International expert for governments (Ireland, Italy, Portugal, etc.); member of Committees (CNEH in France, Swiss Parliament, etc.); as well as in most Eastern European countries and in Asia (Japan) mainly for security issues and health economics. Also, he was Expert to EEC, WHO, Council of Europe and the World Bank for the development of indicators of quality of care, for the use of terminology in EHR and statistical, ethical or educational issues. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 1991 and Founding member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017.
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| ROSSING NIELS |  |
Niels Rossing, PhD, FEFMI, headed up the European Union’s Advanced Informatics in Medicine (AIM) program for many years. A wide variety of multi-national projects were undertaken over a period of at least 6 years with groups of Medical Informaticians proposing various projects taking typically about 3 years. Many of these projects were written up in a series of books published by IOS Press of Amsterdam. The first was “Data Protection & Confidentiality in Health Informatics” in 1991, which was the result of an AIM working conference. Many projects were published in the following series – ones were about Security and Data Protection SEISMED Vols l, ll & lll which were IOS Studies in Health Technology & Informatics vols 31, 32 & 33. The follow-on project ISHTAR was published as 66 in 2001 and he became involved in Security standards with MEDSEC published as vol 69 in 2002. At some time Niels Rossing retired from the leadership of the EU AIM program to run a hospital in Denmark. Niels was in large part responsible for making all this work possible. It provided another international stream of European activity in addition to the conferences and working groups of the EFMI and IMIA. He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics in 1994 (FEFMI).
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| SCHERRER JEAN-RAOUL
Passed Away: 2002 |
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Jean–Raoul Scherrer (1932-2002), FEFMI, was a pioneer in the development of clinical information systems. He received in 2000 the Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence in medical informatics. Jean-Rauol Scherrer was born in the Canton of Jura, Switzerland, in October 1932 but has lived most of his life in Geneva, Switzerland. He went to college in Fribourg, at a Jesuit School called College of Saint Michel, and followed the classical pathway – ancient Greek, Latin, and strong mathematics studies. In 1959, he graduated from the Medical School of the University of Geneva, where he studied Physiology and Internal medicine. From 1967 until 1969, Professor Scherrer did postgraduate work in Medical physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island, and then returned to Geneva and the Cantonal Hospital of the University of Geneva, where he began to design and build what was to become DIOGENE, the Hospital’s patient information system. The idea was to have a system that would be patient-centric. Professor Scherrer addressed the needs of the physician, and not only that, he did not encumber the physician with the need to learn the computer. The basic principle was: One puts orders in through the telephone. One could immediately see on the screen what he had ordered. Behind this outward façade was a bank of individuals who were keying in the information for orders, for medications, for laboratory work, and for radiology. But his objective was to see how the computer could be an enabling tool, to assist the health care provider in doing what he or she needed to do to be giving the best possible care for the patient. Starting with the mainframe-based patient-centered hospital information system DIOGENE in the 70s, Prof. Scherrer developed, implemented and evolved innovative concepts of man-machine interfaces, distributed and federated environments, leading the way with information systems that obstinately focused on the support of care providers and patients. Through a rigorous design of terminologies and ontologies, the DIOGENE data would then serve as a basis for the development of clinical research, data mining, and lead to innovative natural language processing techniques. In parallel, Prof. Scherrer supported the development of medical image management, ranging from a distributed picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) to molecular imaging of protein electrophoreses. Recognizing the need for improving the quality and trustworthiness of medical information on the Web, Prof. Scherrer created the Health-Onthe-Net (HON) foundation. He had groups working on natural language processing and image processing and manipulation in the OSIRIS system. Another of his groups was determining protein constellations in human patients by the use of bi-dimensional electrophoresis of human serum, and correlating these patterns with the identification of genes, using several scattered remote data bases. This Webbased system is called ExPASy. This was one of the first bioinformatics groups assembled any place in the world. In Geneva in 1992, researchers at CERN, a high-energy physics laboratory, invented the World Wide Web. Luckily, the director of CERN was a neighbor of Professor Scherrer, and because of this neighborhood collaboration, the group at Geneva Hospital was really the first to apply World Wide Web technology in health care. They made their protein research databases available to colleagues around the world via the Web and were really the first to do this. Dr. Scherrer was Executive Vice President of IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association) in charge of Working Groups and Special Interest Groups from 1993 to 1996: and President of the EFMI (1996-1998). He has been elected as Honorary Fellow of European Federation for Medical Informatics (FEFMI) in 2002.
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| WAGNER GUSTAV |  |
Gustav Wagner, PhD, FEFMI, is German scientist who developed the first professional organization for informatics in 1949. European countries began creating university departments and programs specializing in the subject. It was not until the 1960s, however, that the French coined the term medical informatics to formally define the field of health care informatics. Dr. Gustav Wagner was an editor from 1959 of a journal for medical documentation, and then a founder and for a quarter of a century the editor of the influential journal “Methods of Information in Medicine” (beginning in 1962 – originally in German, but from 1969, in English.) “Methods” was designated as the first official journal of IMIA, and publication continues to this day. Dr. Wagner’s work on patient record organization was pioneering and foundational for the field of computer-based documentation in medicine.
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| WEBER ALBERT |
Albert Weber, PhD, FEFDMI, a Swiss-born statistician, has played a key-role in the foundation of EFMI (European Federation for Medical Informatics) in 1976 in Copenhagen during a meeting held in WHO-EUR office. Albert Weber, as a member of WHO-EUROPE staff, played a key-role in the definition of Europe for EFMI countries membership, that corresponded in 1975 to WHO European Region: it included “Eastern countries” as well as Israël. Furthermore, he attended MIE Conferences and Council meetings of EFMI where his advices were highly appreciated. EFMI accepted to follow WHO-EUR concepts that he promoted for the development of Health Informatics in Europe.
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| ZVÁROVÁ JANA
Passed Away: 2017 |
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Jana Zvárová (1943- 2017) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. After graduating mathematics in 1965 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague she has been working with several faculties of Charles University in Prague (Faculty of Paediatrics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and First faculty of Medicine). She completed external doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Albert Perez, member of IFIP. He brought her attention to the field of medical informatics and opened the contacts with founders of IMIA. Jana Zvárová founded the medical informatics section of the Czech Society of biomedical engineering and medical informatics in 1978. The same year, she received PhD scientific degree at Charles University in Prague. She passed the habilitation for Doc. (Associated Professor) at Charles University in 1991 and she was nominated by the president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel as Prof. (Full Professor) at Charles University in Prague in 1999. She reached the highest Czech scientific degree DrSc. (Doctor of Sciences) in 1999 at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI in 2015. She has delivered presentations and published internationally since 1969 on medical informatics and statistics issues. She systematically sought to apply new theoretical knowledge in biomedicine, particularly in relation to epidemiology and public health and their subsequent transfer to the educational process. Since 1994 she has been chairing the European Center of Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology of Charles University and Academy of Sciences CR (EuroMISE Center) and in the period 2006-2011 was the director of the Center of Biomedical Informatics. She is the representative of the Czech Republic in the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI). She has significant professional participation in national and international initiatives in biomedical informatics and statistics, especially in the field of research, higher education and continuing education using new information technology. She has been a member of the editorial boards of national and international journals. She has served as the expert in the field for the EC and Czech governmental institutions. The results of her research activities are contained in 10 monographs and more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals. The total number of citations of her work is more than 600 and she is the main author of three patents directed to biomedicine. She initiated the development of PhD studies in Biomedical Informatics under the school of Postgraduate doctoral studies of biomedicine of Charles University and Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and she is chairing the board of Biomedical Informatics. Within the European projects she opened new lines of research and education concerning electronic health record, knowledge representation in clinical guidelines, decision support systems and methods for evaluation of knowledge in the Czech Republic. In the last five years she published chapters in books with IGI Global, USA and added more volumes to the series of books published by Charles University printing house in the edition Biomedical Informatics (6 volumes) and Biomedical Statistics (4 volumes). In addition to extensive publishing activities Jana Zvárová delivered a number of invited lectures at national and international conferences and universities, worked in scientific boards of several universities, national and international societies and editorial boards of professional journals. She served in the program committees of many national and international conferences and conducted fairly extensive peer review and peer review activities, including expert services for the European Commission. She is the member of the working group on electronic healthcare of the Czech Medical Society J.E. Purkyne. She organized several IMIA and EFMI international conferences and workshops in Prague. She initiated the foundation of the EuroMISE Mentor Association (www.euromise.net) focused on the international cooperation in mentoring activities. She has been elected as Honorary Fellow of EFMI (FEFMI in 2014 and member of International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (MIAHSI) in 2017.
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