Health informatics is thus an essential and pervasive element in all healthcare activity.
BMiS is a national association for people concerned with health informatics in both of these senses, and is based on the recognition that practical and scientific concerns in this domain are interdependent and inseparable. Twenty years ago medical informatics was seen largely in terms of the computerisation of healthcare. Today, with computers much more a part of routine daily life, there is a tendency to reduce the specific emphasis on computers and technology in health informatics, and to stress the meanings of information in the everyday work of healthcare professionals, in communication, shared knowledge and decision-making, and in the complex social and functional needs of healthcare organisations and services. The strategy Information for Health which the UK government announced in 1998 is the most ambitious, considered and widely supported agenda for health informatics ever officially adopted on a national basis. The scope, challenges and problems it offers for health informatics, intellectual and practical, technological and cultural, are daunting and exciting.