_______________________________________________________________________________
From: [log in to unmask] on Sat, Dec 19,1998  0:23
Subject: ACCESS AMIA ISSUE 11
To: AMIA Members

                               ACCESS AMIA

                       On-line Communique of the
               American Medical Informatics Association

                       Issue 11, December 18, 1998

                        HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM AMIA!


* 1700 Attend AMIA 1998 Annual Symposium in Orlando
* 1999 Annual Symposium Call for Participation Distributed
* Reviewers Will Be Needed
* AMIA 1999 Spring Congress Will Have New Look; Location, Dates
Announced * MD Computing Changes Editorial and Subscription
Approaches; AMIA MD Computing
     Program Will Be Discontinued
* Computers in Healthcare Videos Available from AMIA
* Following Health Informatics Public Policy: The JHITA Web Site


 1700 ATTEND AMIA 1998 ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM IN ORLANDO.  More than 1,700
 attended this year's AMIA Annual Symposium, held on November 7-11 in
 Orlando, Florida.  Special congratulations go to Christopher Chute,
 MD, this year's Program Chair, and his Scientific Program Committee
 for outstanding content at the Symposium.  An extensive overview of
 the meeting will appear in the next issue of AMIA News, which will be
 sent out in January.  AMIA expresses its gratitude to all the
 speakers, panelists, poster presenters, attendees, reviewers,
 tutorial and workshop presenters, and exhibitors who made this year's
 meeting such a success.    


 1999 ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM CALL FOR PARTICIPATION DISTRIBUTED.  AMIA
 members should by now have received through the mail a Call for
 Participation for the 1999 Annual Symposium that will be held
 November 6-10, 1999, at the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel (formerly
 Sheraton Washington) in Washington, DC.  Please note that all
 submissions must be received at the AMIA office no later than March
 9, 1999.  All submissions must be electronic, in the form of a file
 attachment to an e-mail message.  Please consult the Call for
 instructions for submissions; it is crucial that these instructions
 be followed.  Questions should be directed to Jeffrey Williamson,
 AMIA's Director of Education.  


 REVIEWERS WILL BE NEEDED.  On December 17, AMIA sent broadcast an
 e-mail message to all members, asking for volunteers to serve as
 reviewers of submissions for the 1999 Annual Symposium.  Members were
 referred to a page on the AMIA Web site where a reviewer volunteer
 form is located and can be printed and faxed or mailed back; the Web
 address for the form is
 http//www.amia.org/meetings/f99/call/revwform.htm. In addition, those
 who reviewed last year will receive a postal mailing with a reviewer
 form enclosed. Other than the initial submission of the reviewer
 volunteer form, the entire review process will be conducted via
 e-mail this year.  Reviewer volunteer forms need to be returned by
 February 1, 1999.  Reviewing will take place in late March and early
 April.  AMIA appreciates those who donate the time in order to take
 part in this extremely important peer review process.


 AMIA 1999 SPRING CONGRESS WILL HAVE NEW LOOK; LOCATION, DATES
 ANNOUNCED.  The AMIA 1999 Spring Congress will be held May 25-27,
 1999, at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.  The theme will be
 "Health Informatics Education."  The format of 1999's Spring Congress
 will depart from what it has been in recent years.  Rather than a
 broad view of many issues within medical informatics that attempts to
 appeal to the full spectrum of AMIA members and beyond, the Spring
 Congress will have a more specific focus.  The Congress will consist
 of invited rather than contributed papers.  In addition to leading to
 a more streamlined and focussed Spring meeting, these changes will
 also serve to underscore the role of AMIA's other meeting, the AMIA
 Annual Symposium in the fall, as *the* meeting of the year for
 contributed, peer-reviewed papers, panels, theater-style
 demonstrations, posters, tutorials, and workshops on any topic of
 interest within the broad field of health informatics.  In the
 meantime, the 1999 Spring Congress is expected to set the standard
 for examining the key issues and future prospects in academic and
 applied health informatics training and education programs.  The
 Spring Congress program will be published on AMIA's Web site in late
 January, and a mailing will be sent to all AMIA members in February.
 If the 1999 Spring Congress theme is one of particular professional
 interest to you, mark May 25-27 on your calendars now.


 MD COMPUTING CHANGES EDITORIAL AND SUBSCRIPTION APPROACHES; AMIA MD
 COMPUTING PROGRAM WILL BE DISCONTINUED.  Effective January 1, 1999,
 AMIA will no longer provide members discounted subscriptions to MD
 Computing.  This follows on the heels of a change in editorial
 approach on the part of MD Computing and, perhaps more importantly, a
 change in circulation approach that will move MD Computing away from
 primarily paid subscriptions to one supported nearly entirely by
 advertising revenues. The editorship, in recent years under Dr.
 Warner Slack, moves in-house to the publisher, Springer-Verlag.
 Springer is also changing the subscription approach to what is termed
 "controlled circulation."  This means that individuals in relevant
 professions will be able to receive the journal free.  While MD
 Computing will continue to have part of the content peer-reviewed and
 should continue to be a very informative publication, the controlled
 circulation approach eliminates the necessity of having an
 organization like AMIA serve as a "broker" for discounted
 subscription rates, since MD Computing will now be distributed free.
 AMIA will be sending a letter to all members this month informing
 them of this change.  Springer-Verlag has assured AMIA that it, too,
 will contact AMIA members, inviting them to continue their
 subscription gratis, and Springer will directly refund to AMIA
 members the pro-rated share of any advance subscription payments that
 were made by members to AMIA for any period that extends beyond
 January 1, 1999.  We will continue to monitor this transition and
 update members as necessary.


 COMPUTERS IN HEALTHCARE VIDEOS AVAILABLE FROM AMIA.  Thanks in large
 part to the efforts of AMIA Board member Kathleen McCormick, PhD, RN,
 several AMIA members are prominent presenters in a video series on
 Computers in Healthcare.  The broadcasts and videos have been
 produced by the Health & Sciences Television Network, a division of
 PRIMEDIA Healthcare.  Two videos are currently available, and four
 more will be produced this winter and spring.  The two that are
 available now are Volume 1, presented by Dr. McCormick on the subject
 of consumer health information the Internet, and Volume 2, a
 presentation by Terry P. Clemmer, MD, and Reed M. Gardner, PhD, on
 computerized decision support systems.  The videos are each 30
 minutes long, and are available from AMIA for $30 each, or $50 for
 both.  An order form is available from the AMIA office and can be
 printed off the AMIA Web site at
 http://www.amia.org/pubs/hstnord.htm, completed, and mailed or faxed
 to AMIA. 


 FOLLOWING HEALTH INFORMATICS PUBLIC POLICY: THE JHITA WEB SITE.
 Earlier this year, AMIA became a member of the Joint Healthcare
 Information Technology Alliance (JHITA), joining four other
 organizations in an effort to coordinate in areas of common concern.
 The other four organizations are HIMSS, AHIMA, CHIM, and CHIME.  One
 area of common interest is in the public policy arena.  JHITA has
 joined AMIA's efforts to bring about balanced medical information
 privacy and confidentiality legislation, and AMIA has benefited from
 a long-standing JHITA effort to gather information on a wide range of
 issues related to public policy that impact the health informatics
 professions.  An ongoing account of public policy issues and JHITA's
 involvement in them can be found at the JHITA Web site at
 http://www.jhita.org , especially in the sections "Issues Reports"
 and "Advocacy Papers."  The site is updated at least twice a month
 with bi-monthly Issues Reports. 


     * * * * * * * *

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