THE CENTER OF BIOMEDICAL INFORMATICS STATE UNIVERSITY OF CAMPINAS CAMPINAS, BRAZIL The Center of Biomedical Informatics is an interdisciplinary research center affiliated to the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). UNICAMP is a state-owned institution, founded 1962, located in the city of Campinas, an industrial and cultural center distant 90 km north to the city of S†o Paulo, Brazil, with a population of approximately 1,000,000. The University has ca. 6,000 undergraduate and 5,000 graduate students. Largely due to its pioneering efforts in many fields, and to the quality of its staff, UNICAMP is considered one of the best Universities in Latin America, particularly in high technology (micro-electronics, physics, informatics, electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, etc.). Thus, UNICAMP plays also an important role in the integration of high-technology activities in the region of Campinas, which is considered today as the Brazilian counterpart of the "Silicon Valley", since it is populated with a large number of industries, research centers (such as the Center of Technology in Informatics, the Telebras Research Center) and two universities. Starting in 1982, a major innovation in the University's structure was heralded with the creation of several interdisciplinary centers and groups, devoted to research in several frontier domains of knowledge, opening up many areas of endeavor not previously in existence in the University. Among these, the Center of Biomedical Informatics (N£cleo de Informatica Biom‚dica, or NIB) was created in 1983. AIMS The Center of Biomedical Informatics has the following aims: - to promote interdisciplinary research and development in all fields related to the application of Informatics to the Biological and Health Sciences; - to promote specialized training and education in these areas, by means of courses and graduate programs in collaboration with other UNICAMP units; - to make available and to extend this knowledge to the participating and user's community, through publications, seminars, technical consultancy, etc. The Center of Biomedical Informatics has played a leading role in the development and progress of Health Informatics in Brazil. Its members were instrumental in forming the first professional society in the area (the Brazilian Society of Health Informatics), its first and only journal (Brazilian Journal of Health Informatics), in organizing and hosting the First Brazilian Congress of Health Informatics (Campinas, 1986), and in actively helping federal, state and research/higher education and research granting agencies in setting up programs in the area. RESOURCES Currently, NIB has a staff of 2 full-time researchers, 5 associated researchers, 3 full-time systems analysts and 2 administrative assistants. There are an additional 20 persons involved with NIB activities, including other investigators, undergraduate and graduate students, etc., associated to ongoing research projects. NIB is located in a building belonging to the huge in-campus complex comprising the 1,000-student Medical School and the 500-bed University Hospital complex. The majority of projects within NIB are oriented towards practical applications of microcomputers to health care and research. NIB is connected to the University's Computing Center facilities, which are one of the most advanced in the country. They consist of a cluster of four high-performance Digital VAX mainframes, a Cyber 700 and an IBM 3090 mainframe with a 300-mips vector facility, all connected to a local optical fiber Ethernet network which integrates other VAX and IBM superminicomputers located in several Institutes. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT The most important areas of research and development at NIB are: - hospital and laboratory automation; - general clinical applications (history-taking, clinical database management, health risks appraisal, medical decision-making); - scientific applications in several areas (neurology and neurobiology, cardiology, anesthesiology, ophthalmology, internal medicine, dentistry, nursing, intensive therapy, obstetrics and gynecology, etc.) - computer-assisted health education and training, and teaching of Informatics to health students and professionals; including intelligent CAI, hypertext and hypermedia applications - biological image and signal processing - knowledge engineering, intelligent data bases in Health, expert systems and neural networks applications in Biology and Medicine. The main line of excellence of the Center's research is devoted to applications in the Neurosciences. Many of the Center's research and development projects are carried out in close collaboration with other Departments and Centers in or outside UNICAMP, including the Medical, Dentistry and Nursing Schools, the University General Hospital, the Institute of Biology, the School of Physics Education, the School of Electrical Engineering, the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, the Biotechnology Center, the Center of Informatics in Education, etc. TRAINING AND EDUCATION NIB offers regularly many lectures, courses and technical seminars to students and users in the health care area, both internal and external audiences. Some of the courses described below have been given in programs of permanent collaboration between NIB and several professional and scientific associations in the health sector, such as the Medical Association of Sao Paulo, the Dentistry Association of Sao Paulo, the Brazilian Nursing Association, etc.: - Basic and Advanced Concepts in Health Informatics; - Utilization of Microcomputers in the Clinical Practice - Applications of Computers in Nursing - Applications of Computers in Dentistry - Introduction to Computer Programming in the Health Sciences - Applications of Microcomputer Database Management Systems in Health Care - Medical Applications of Image Processing - Microcomputer Applications in Data Processing and Analysis in the Health Sciences - Artificial Intelligence Techniques and Applications in Medicine - Artificial Neural Networks in Medicine - Applications of Computers to Medical Education Starting 1986, an intensive Summer Course on Health Informatics has been offered to participants coming from other Brazilian Universities, with the aim to disseminate the Center's experience in setting up R&D centers in Health Informatics. The Center provides also the main support to the Chair of Medical Informatics at the School of Medicine, which is responsible for courses at undergraduate and graduate levels to Medical and Nursing students, since 1988. At international level, NIB has collaborated with the World Health Organization (Division of Information Systems Support) in developing teaching materials and in providing faculty resources to seminars and courses on microcomputer applications to health care management. In order to provide better opportunities for specialization studies in Health Informatics, the Center has established a collaborative program with the Medical and Engineering Schools at UNICAMP, designed to attract undergraduate students of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, etc., who are interested in a long term career in this area. Training is carried out through special courses developed by NIB, and by supervised research work on an individual basis. The students who show a higher potential are supported by state- granted fellowships until they graduate. There are currently 5 students enrolled in the Centaur Project. Finally, there is an ongoing collaboration between NIB and other University faculties, with the aim of forming specialists in Health Informatics, at the graduate level. There are currently 6 candidates preparing their Masters and doctoral dissertations under this program. Preparations are also being made to establish an autonomous, separate joint graduate studies program in Health Informatics, which will lead to a Masters degree. DOCUMENTATION AND INFORMATION SUPPORT With the aim to provide services of information support and documentation to researchers, lecturers, students and end- users in Health Informatics at a national level, NIB has established a clearinghouse and a central library facility with books, journals, product specifications and folders, technical manuals, software listings, etc. A national, public-domain software library for microcomputers has also been formed (MEDSOFT), and already includes a great variety of application software packages in health care and administration, which are distributed to users under a nominal cost. Some of these materials (software and bibliographic references, as well an information service about new products, congresses, new publications, etc.) are also disseminated to end-users through electronic mail. Finally, the Center's staff is responsible for the editing and publishing, in a joint effort with a private publisher, of the Brazilian Journal of Health Informatics, which is the only publication of its kind in Latin America, and is sponsored by the Brazilian Society of Health Informatics. ADDRESS FOR CONTACTS Prof. Dr. Renato M.E. Sabbatini Director, N£cleo de Informatica Biom‚dica Universidade Estadual de Campinas P.O. Box 6005 13081 CAMPINAS, Sao Paulo, Brazil Tel. (+55 192) 39 7130 Telex +55 19-1150 uec br Fax (+55 192) 39 4717 Email INFOMED@CCVAX.UNICAMP.BR INFOMED@BRUC.BITNET