National EFMI Member Society: The Danish Society for Medical Informatics
Short overview: The interest in medical informatics, or more appropriate - health care informatics - is increasing in the Danish community. The awareness among health care professionals is growing, the topic is clearly on the political agenda, and the marketplace is expanding.

It is interesting to note, that the Government has published its IT strategy - where health care has a very high priority. An agreement has been reached with the Counties (which runs the hospitals) for a strategy and the financing of an expansion of IT use in hospitals. The national health care network programme (MedCom) has been made a permanent activity. More than 1,5 million health care messages are sent via the network every month. (www.health-telematics.dk) The Ministry of Health is supporting 10 project regarding the development of Danish electronic patient records. An increasing number of hospitals are starting to use electronic health care records. (www.hep.dk) The National Panel for Standardisation of Medical Informatics has published a popular booklet on standardisation of electronic health care records the use of Internet in health care is increasing. The Danish Medical Association has established a medical intranet and supplies all Danish doctors with free Internet access. (A public part is on (www.dadl.dk) The post graduate education in health care informatics is running at Aalborg University for the forth year, graduating Masters of Information Technology. DSMI has once again supported some of the students with grants. (www.v-chi.dk/) the number of members in The Danish Society for Medical Informatics is increasing (www.dsmi.dk)

The Danish Society for Medical Informatics - Dansk Selskab for Medicinsk Informatik (DSMI) was established in 1966. It is an independent society with an associated status to the Danish Medical Societies. The aim of the society is to compile and disseminate theoretical and practical knowledge in medical informatics, and to stimulate research and the use of medical information systems. The 429 members are physicians, nurses and others who work with theoretical or practical aspects of medical information technologies

DSMI organises meetings, conferences and courses to pursue the goals of the society.One of the largest efforts for the Society was the organisation of MIE'96 in Copenhagen. More that 1000 participants participated in the high quality scientific programme and the large exhibition.

Other meetings have been successfully organised on Intranetworking, the Master of Information Technology programme at Aalborg University, Usability seminar, the Internet patient and The New Danish National IT- Strategy etc. In 2000 there will be organised conferences and meetings on EPR, clinical databases, a joint Danish/ Brasilien Conference, etc. Meetings are also organised in cooperation with the Danish Society for Quality Assurance, the Danish National Board of Health and the Virtual Center for Health Informatics at Aalborg University.

The Society is represented in various groups, i.e. the Ministry of Health's advisory group and the Danish Standardisation Committee. The Society publishes a newsletter with abstracts of the meetings, papers, book reviews, announcements of international conferences and other relevant information. The DSMI homepage is playing a large role in the communication with the members: www.dsmi.dk