Forum explores ways new technologies will affect medicine

“Access in the Millennium: Medical Applications of New Technologies” is the theme of a forum to be held from 9 a.m. to noon, Monday, Oct. 25, in the Seattle Center’s Conference Center Room H.

Dr. Edward H. “Ted” Shortliffe, professor of medicine and computer science at Stanford University, is the keynote speaker. A well-known medical informatics expert, he will discuss “The Future of Wide-Area Networking for the Health-Care Community: the NGI (Next Generation Internet).”

Four additional panelists will discuss telemedicine, video broadcasting, virtual interface technology, and telecommunications in Native American health care. They include Dr. Peter Tarczy-Hornoch, clinical informatics lead and architect of the UW’s Web-based electronic medical records system; Letcher Ross, digital convergence specialist at UWTV; Madonna Yawakie, president of Turtle Island Communications, Inc. and consultant for rural and tribal telecommunications networks; and Suzanne Weghorst, research director at the UW Human Interface Technology Laboratory.

The forum is held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association and funded by the National Library of Medicine. It is sponsored by the Regional Medical Library at the UW Health Sciences Libraries and Information Center.

It is open to interested medical professionals as well as the public, at no charge. More information is available at or (206) 543-8262 or http://www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov/pnr/visions/

Laurie McHale