Conference Link: http://healthinf.biostec.org

Foreword: This volume contains the proceedings of the First International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF 2008), organized by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information Control and Communication (INSTICC) and the University of Madeira, technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMB) and the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), in cooperation with AAAI. The purpose of the International Conference on Health Informatics is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to healthcare and medicine in general and to the specialized support to persons with special needs in particular. Databases, networking, graphical interfaces, intelligent decision support systems and specialized programming languages are just a few of the technologies currently used in medical informatics. Mobility and ubiquity in healthcare systems, standardization of technologies and procedures, certification, privacy are some of the issues that medical informatics professionals and the ICT industry in general need to address in order to further promote ICT in healthcare. In the case of medical rehabilitation and assistive technology the use of ICT has had important results in the enhancement of the quality of life, contributing to a full integration of all citizens in the societies they are also part of. HEALTHINF is a forum for debating all these aspects. Furthermore, this conference is also a meeting place for those interested in understanding the human and social implications of technology, not only in healthcare systems but in other aspects of human-machine interaction such as accessibility issues. HEALTHINF is one of three integrated conferences that are co-located and constitute the International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC). The other two component conferences are BIOSIGNALS (International Conference on Bioinspired Systems and Signal Processing) and BIODEVICES (International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices). The joint conference, BIOSTEC, has received 494 paper submissions from more than 40 countries in all continents. 65 papers were published and presented as full papers, i.e. completed work (8 pages/30’ oral presentation), 189 papers reflecting work-in-progress or position papers were accepted for short presentation, and another 86 contributions were accepted for poster presentation. These numbers, leading to a “full-paper” acceptance ratio below 14% and a total oral paper presentations acceptance ratio below 52%, show the intention of preserving a high quality forum for the next editions of this conference. The conference included a panel and six invited talks delivered by internationally distinguished speakers, namely: Sergio Cerutti, Kevin Warwick, F. H. Lopes da Silva, Vipul Kashyap, David Hall and Albert Cook. Their participation has positively contributed to reinforce the overall quality of the Conference and to provide a deeper understanding of the field of Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. The proceedings of the conference will be indexed by several major indices including DBLP, INSPEC and ISI-Proceedings and it will also be submitted for indexing to EI. A book with the revised versions of a short list of selected papers from the conference will be published by Springer-Verlag in the new CS book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS). Additionally, a special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems will be edited based on the very best papers of the conference. The program for this conference required the dedicated effort of many people. Firstly, we must thank the authors, whose research and development efforts are recorded here. Secondly, we thank the members of the program committee and the additional reviewers for their diligence and expert reviewing. Thirdly, we thank the keynote speakers for their invaluable contribution and for taking the time to synthesise and prepare their talks. Fourthly, we thank the program chairs, Luis Azevedo and Ana Rita Londral, whose collaboration was much appreciated. Finally, special thanks to all the members of the INSTICC team, especially Marina Carvalho at the conference secretariat, and the local organising committee from the University of Madeira, especially Jorge Cardoso and Paulo Sampaio, whose collaboration was fundamental for the success of this conference. This year, the organization will distribute two paper awards at the conference closing session: the best paper award and the best student paper award. The decision was mainly based on the paper classifications provided by the Program Committee. We wish you all an exciting conference and an unforgettable stay in the lovely island of Madeira. We hope to meet you again next year for the 2nd HEALTHINF, details of which are available at http://www.healthinf.org. (More)

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