Health informatics in the Asia Pacific region.

Although health informatics has been an established science in some Asia Pacific countries since the 1970s, its current degree of awareness among countries in this region can largely be attributed to the efforts of the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics. These efforts have included the spawning of national health informatics associations in some countries, creating opportunities for cross-country scientific interactions at national health informatics meetings and promoting regional health informatics activities and expertise through the APAMI web site. This presentation gives a review of the current status of health informatics activities among APAMI member countries as well as a cross-section of some of their health informatics projects.