The European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) is a Federation of National Associations in Medical and Health Informatics in the European Region as defined by WHO. EFMI was conceived at a meeting, assisted by the Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organisation (WHO), in Copenhagen in September 1976. The original declaration says of 11-09-1976 states that “The Federation shall be constituted as a non-profit organisation concerned with the theory and practice of Information Science and Technology within Health and Health Science in a European context as defined by WHO”.
Nowadays, EFMI has more than 32 national associations that span from Iceland to Israel and from Portugal to Armenia with in the European Continent and the European Region as defined by WHO. In addition, 12 working groups cover the whole spectrum of the scientific domain of Biomedical Informatics, among those are: Health Records, Information Systems, Data Analytics, Education, Imaging, Evaluation of Health Information Systems, Standards, Nursing Informatics, Translational Bioinformatics. Besides national associations and working groups EFMI has introduced the notion of institutional membership where academic and corporate organisations may participate in the activities.
The objectives of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) are: to advance international co-operation and dissemination of information in Medical Informatics on a European basis; to promote high standards in the application of medical informatics; to promote research and development in medical informatics; to encourage high standards in education in medical informatics; to disseminate knowledge in the field developed within national associations among and to the countries constituting EFMI; to provide guidelines and accreditation on education and training in Biomedical Informatics and Health Informatics; and to function as the autonomous European Regional Council of IMIA.
The main activities of EFMI is the organisation of the annual conferences MIE (Medical Informatics in Europe) and the EFMI-STC (Special Topic Conference). Besides those main events EFMI promotes national conferences and workshops organised its national associations, and initiatives such as special meetings and advanced workshops organised by its Working Groups. EFMI participates in international Conferences and Exhibitions such as Medinfos, eHealth Forums, and WoHIT events. The main means of dissemination of its developed knowledge is through the above-mentioned events and conferences and through white papers, and peer-reviewed articles and high-impact papers. Moreover, EFMI seeks to be linked with international organisations, such as, WHO, IMIA, IFIP, ISO and CEN, European Commission, and EFMI’s expertise is part of any high-level initiative European and International. EFMI will enable wide communication and dissemination of CrowdHEALTH outcomes by engaging and interacting with stakeholder across the complete health care ecosystem. EFMI, being able to address more than 5000 health institutions / entities, provides a significant added-value to CrowdHEALTH. Finally, EFMI incorporates recommendations and feedback from external stakeholders.