In a developing information society, the members of the European Federation for Medical Informatics are keen to develop the dissemination of health information to the public at large. Health Care should be safe, effective, efficient and patient-centred. Moreover, the health system should be more transparent. It should make information available to patients and their families that allows them to make informed decisions when choosing among alternative treatments or clinical practices. Information technology must play a central role in the redesign of building an information infrastructure to support health care delivery, consumer health, quality measurement and improvement, and clinical education. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is now accessible to the public in developed countries. The development of wireless and portable technologies also makes this access possible in developing countries. The extensive use of the web by patients and laymen for health information, challenges us to build information services that are easily accessible and trustworthy. The evolution towards a semantic web is one of the topics that is addressed in this book. Papers on the state of the art of more classical topics covering all the fields of biomedical informatics have been selected and presented in this book.
