B4:    A national approach to health informatics in primary care

Sam Heard MD is the Director of the General Practice Education and Research Unit, NT Clinical School, Flinders University (Australia) and an academic general practitioner who has worked in London and Northern Australia. After graduation in 1979 Sam travelled to the UK and worked at St Bartholomew's Hospital where he wrote an early GP system (ParaDoc) and was a key participant in the Good European Health Record (GEHR) project. After returning to Australia he has worked with Thomas Beale to take what is now known as the Good Electronic Health Record into implementation trials in Australia. He is the first author of "The benefits and difficulties of introducing a national approach to electronic health records" which formed the background paper (and is included in full) in the Australian National Electronic Health Record Taskforce report - July 2000.

Sam remains committed to the task of ensuring that the electronic health record architecture enables the exchange health information and separates clinical standards development from the record architecture itself.

Professor Michael Kidd MBBS MD DCCH DipRACOG FRACGP is Head of the Department of General Practice at the University of Sydney and also works as a general practitioner in the inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst in Sydney. His research interests include the use of information technology to improve patient care in general practice, the development of computer-based medical education and the use of the Internet in health education. He is co-editor of the textbook "Health Informatics: an Overview".

He is the elected chair of the Management Committee of the General Practice Computing Group (GPCG), which is the peak body for general practice computing in Australia. The GPCG has a $15m budget and has established strategic directions for the implementation of new technology in general practice to improve the quality of health care delivery in Australia. He also chairs the Informatics Working Group of the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) as well as the Primary Care Working Group of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA).