ICMCC-GHITA 2011 - ICMCC-GHITA Event 2011:Global Health Information Technology Awareness

The International Council on Medical and Care Compunetics (ICMCC) has established itself over the years as an international organization addressing the social, societal, and ethical aspects of ICT (Compunetics) in medicine and care. ICMCC has become one of the leading sources of information on the subject and is one of the few global organizations with a strong focus on the value of proactive patients and sound ICT practice to improving the health and welfare of citizens.
ICMCC is organizing the first Global conference on applied Health IT Awareness (GHITA) to be held in Amsterdam on 13-14 June 2011.
Background

Improving the health of citizens begins with the ability to increase awareness on the impacts of disease. Minimizing the risk to disease requires implementing preventive programs and the engagement of citizens to make a personal commitment to improve their health and lifestyle. Preventive programs target at-risk individuals or family dispositions. Awareness and personal commitment and lifestyle improvements target all citizens. The mission of awareness and prevention programs to improve the health quality and reduce the risk of disease requires a proactive and comprehensive view of health. It requires optimal collaboration and cross-fertilization between the different health services and the multidisciplinary domains they represent to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved.
Comprehensive and interdisciplinary health services are proving to be more effective through the use of applied Compunetics. It can be demonstrated that awareness and commitment to disease prevention improves population health, and that commitment to ICT will have a similar impact on citizen health. Multidisciplinary collaboration between citizens and health as well as social care providers whether in prevention, acute or chronic care, or personal or public health increases awareness and is changing the paradigm in the physician-patient relationship. Health Compunetics becomes the backbone of this changing paradigm. Compunetics facilitates the exchange of data which drives information and decision support. Compunetics allows a growing emphasis on personal health improvement and disease prevention with fewer resources to allow our health services community to deal with many health-related aspects in a more efficient way, enabling professionals to invest more quality time in people.
The ICMCC challenge is to ensure the social, societal and ethical, the behavioral application impact of ICT in medicine and care. Compunetics empowers all stakeholders to achieve this positive impact. Compunetics professionals must support awareness in the delivery of health care practice. We must illustrate how the medical professional can inform the patient, to guide him in access to information, to accept him as an active “partner,” and how to accept the interchangeability of exam and lab results. And how the medical professional, as a patient learns to find validated information, accepts their role as an active participant in their own processes and embraces the growing role of digital homecare.
Extending awareness beyond the physician-patient relationship includes technicians who must be aware of the new information challenges and the necessity of worldwide interoperability based on global standards. Payers must focus on the realization that they have to embrace / research / trial / stimulate new technologies as more (cost) efficient ways to deliver care. Policymakers must understand the need of fundamental policy changes and organizational restructuring, with new and different roles and responsibilities.
While the ever-changing environment of Compunetics continues to look toward the abundance and advancement of new technologies and their use to improve citizen health, minimizing disease impacts on populations will create opportunity to advance health care practice through the use of more timely and reliable data. Rapid developments in the field of medical and care ICT, including home health ICT and the extension of health information to mobile devices such as the iPhone, increase patient awareness which in turn offers challenges and opportunity to both the patient and the provider community.
ICMCC is committed to encouraging the empowerment of the patient through better use of technology. In conjunction with this commitment is our responsibility to increase awareness of health care professionals and citizens through demonstrated ICT practice.
Call for papers

We are inviting and encouraging the medical health technology community of stakeholders ? device manufacturers, telecommunication service providers, pharmaceutical companies, health services providers, social services providers, patients and patients’ organizations, payer organizations, governmental institutions, and public health ? to submit papers (8-15 pages) in support of case studies and emerging or best practice technologies in the use of ICT to improve health outcomes. From all submitted papers the 10 best will be selected for full publication in the Springer-IUPESM journal Health and Technology and a 30 minute presentation.
Papers can be submitted to the journal Health and Technology, mentioning “GHITA” at “Enter comments” before February 15, 2011.
We would appreciate receiving advanced notification of your intention to contribute to the conference.
Important Dates:

Deadline for paper submission: 15 February 2011
Notification about paper acceptance: 15 March 2011
Deadline for submitting the revised papers: 1 April 2011
Conference: 13-14 June 2011
Tentative Submission Deadline : 15 February 2011
Homepage: http://ghita.icmcc.org/