The European Federation for Medical Informatics has established itself as a regional body coordinating activity in medical informatics. The Congress in Toulouse, MIE-81, from 9 - 13 March 1981, is the third congress in the ser ies following MIE-78 in Cambr idge, and MIB-79 in Berlin with a gap during 1980 for the world congress MEDINFO-80 in Tokyo. The rationale behind all these congresses is the scientific need to share results and ideas and the educational need to train a wide variety of professional staff in the potential of health care and medical informatics. All the caring professions are involved, doctors, scientists, nurses, para-medical staff, administrators, health care planners, community physicians, epidemiologists, statisticians, operations analysts together with specialists from the computing profession dealing with system analysis, hardware, software, languages, data-bases and the marketing of systems. Medical Informatics is a very wide subject with ramifications throughout the health care and preventive services; it offers a key to the monitoring and improvement of patient care and to the provision of a healthier environment. The collection and evaluation of relevant data improves our understanding of the ways in which health care is provided while the availability of cheaper computer hardware and more versatile software enables us to design and implement more revealing and intelligent medical systems. Even though typical systems take a substantial amount of time to design, implement and evaluate, there is the continuing need for informaticians to assess the current state of developmen.

Review Papers

Session E1: National and regional data systems and planning
Session E2: National and regional data systems and planning
Session E3: Evaluation of institutions: Out-patients care
Session E4: Patient care: Special application to intensive care
Session E5: Evaluation of institutions: In-patients care
Session E6: Evaluation of diagnostic and therapeutical procedures
Session E7: Health Personnel: Training, manpower and performance
Session C1: Which information to collect and how?
Session C2: Data Handling
Session C3: Follow-up of patients and measurements of quality of care
Session C4: Statistical methods/ therapeutical trials
Session C5: Chronic diseases
Session C6: Methodology and epidemiological studies
Session H1: Handicapped and society
Session H2: Informatics and handicapped
Session H3: Informatiques and handicapped
Session G: General topics
Index of authors.