A new professional body will be launched at this week's health IT conference in Melbourne, HIC2002.
The Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI) has been created by a group including senior academics, IT professionals and public servants to fill unmet needs in the health and IT sectors.
"The formation of this body signals the growing importance of this multidisciplinary field to the health care sector as Australia and the world move towards electronic and mobile health," said Professor Enrico Coiera, one of the founding Fellows of the new college.
"Health and Bioinformatics are pivotal to managing the growing complexities of health care, and managing the ever growing amount of information about treatments and scientific discoveries like the human genome.
Health informatics deals with the collection, storage, retrieval, communication and optimal use of health related data, information and knowledge using the latest methods, processes and technologies from the information, computing and communication sciences.
The college will work with existing bodies such as the Health Informatics Society of Australia, the Australian Computer Society (health informatics committee) and the Health Information Management Association of Australia to achieve its goals.
HIC2002 is being held at the Melbourne Convention Centre.