As the emphasis on individuals' active partnership in health care grows, so does the public's need for effective, comprehensible consumer health resources. Consumer health informatics has the potential to provide frameworks and strategies for designing effective health communication tools that empower users and improve their health decisions. This article presents an overview of the consumer he...

OBJECTIVES The Yearbook of Medical Informatics is published annually by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and contains a selection of excellent papers on medical informatics research which have been recently published (http://www. yearbook.uni-hd.de). The 2003 Yearbook of Medical Informatics took as its theme the role of medical informatics for the quality of health care....

OBJECTIVE To bridge the divide between health informatics 'bench research' and the application of informatics in clinical and health care settings. METHOD Identifying weak points in translational activities, i.e. in the process from health informatics research outcomes to IT system design and information management in clinical practice. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The creation of a new peer-rev...