The HIB 79 Congress is the second one organized by the European Federation for l-iedical Informatics (EFMI). The host society is the "Deutsche Gesellschaft fur l-ledizinische Dokurnentation, Informatik und Statistik (GMDS) who are holding their 24th annual meeting at this time. The program of MIB 79 covers every aspect of the application of information science to medicine and public health, and as such respresents the state of the art. Medical Informatics (M. I. ) is now at a turning pOint. To date, despite the efforts made by specialists in many countries, the balance sheet of M. I. remains...

The European Federation for Medical Informatics has established itself as a regional body coordinating activity in medical informatics. The Congress in Toulouse, MIE-81, from 9 - 13 March 1981, is the third congress in the ser ies following MIE-78 in Cambr idge, and MIB-79 in Berlin with a gap during 1980 for the world congress MEDINFO-80 in Tokyo. The rationale behind all these congresses is the scientific need to share results and ideas and the educational need to train a wide variety of professional staff in the potential of health care and medical informatics. All the caring professions...