By Ehealth Reporter Latin America
In Córdoba
Yesterday morning, Alan March and Hector Repossi, who are co-chairing the event, welcomed an audience of around 150 professionals to CAIS 2011 in a speech in which they lauded the achievement of the 7 bodies which organized the event, designed to encourage communication and exchange of information between professionals and academics.
Repossi noted the presence of visitors and speakers from Uruguay, Chile and Brazil, as well as distinguished professionals from Argentina and a large number of young scientists and students, mainly from Córdoba and Chile, who presented a number of fascinating scientific and academic papers.
He also mentioned the presence of the Asociación Argentina de Informática Médica (AAIM; Argentine Association of Healthcare-related Information Technology), and its equivalent organizations from other countries; SUIS from Uruguay, SBIS from Brazil, and ACHIS from Chile, all of whom are trying to expand the work of the Latin America and Caribbean chapter of IMIA; IMIA LAC, whose activity is currently seen as insufficient.
Repossi stated: “We are working across the region and in Argentina and take part in international congresses because we need to learn from other experiences, but most importantly because we believe that it is necessary to expand communication and exchange of information within the region to build our own model which accurately reflects the particular circumstances of each of our countries.”
Alan March continued the introduction by recounting the history of the congress which began in 1998 as the first symposium of the Sociedad Argentina de Informática, (SADIO; Argentine Information Technology Association), of which March was President, which was attended by 40 representatives.
The link with AAIM was strengthened three years ago during the presidency of Repossi, when it was decided to start a group initiative that resulted in the first Argentine Healthcare-related Information Technology Congress, CAIS 2010, which took place last year.
Also offering their support were the Sociedad Argentina de Bioingeniería (Argentine Bioengineering Society), which had already held an academic meeting featuring the presentation of over 800 scientific papers, the Asociación Médica Argentina (Argentine Medical Association), the centro Argentino de Ingenieros (Argentine Center of Engineers), the Grupo Informática Biomédica Buenos Aires, (Biomedical Information Technology Group of Buenos Aires) and HL7 Argentina.
March finished his presentation with a proposal: “We must create an extremely significant and influential regional community.”
At the end of the event, so that there would be no doubt that the greatest achievement of the congress was the bringing together of the 7 most important information technology institutions in the country, Repossi referred to the catalog bearing the logos of each body: “Anyone who wants to see the green brochure, just has to ask.”
