We are facing the generalization of digital society across multiple social areas. The globalization imposes the revision of the health costs a society can support. The progress in difference domains, such as image processing, wireless communications, computer vision, cardiology, and information storage and management assure a virtual team to access online to the latest achievements.

Processing medical data benefits now from advanced techniques for color imaging, visualization of multi-dimensional projections, Internet imaging localization archiving as well as from a higher resolution of medical devices.

Collecting, storing, and handling patient data requires robust processing systems, safe communications and storage, and easy and authenticated online access.

We assist to a unprecedented and rapid deployment of use of electronic imagery, navigation portals, positive attitude on telemedicine, distributed surgery teams, tele-cardiology, and remote medicine. Development of wireless homecare, of special types of communications with patient data, of videoconferencing and telepresence, and the progress in image processing and date protection increased the eHealth applications and services, and extended Internet-based patient coverage areas. Social and economic aspects as well as the integration of classical systems with the telemedicine systems are still challenging issues.

There are several dedicated events on these topics, usually concentrated on local problems (national), or geographical areas (Europe, Americas), as social and governmental rules may differ; eTELEMED 2009 considers advances in techniques, services, and applications dedicated to a global approach of eHealth, including a regard on federated aspects considering the mobility of population, the cross-nations agreements, and the new information technology tools.

The International Conference on eHealth, Telemedicine, and Social Medicine (eTELEMED 2009) initiates a series of international events covering the latest achievements on the following topics (but not limited to):

eHealth technology and devices
Telemedicine software and devices
Diagnostic/monitoring systems and devices
Electronic health cards
Home monitoring services and equipment
Telemedicine equipments
Online instruments supporting independent living
eHealth telecommunication services
eHealth wireless data communications

eHealth data records
eHealth medical records
Reengineering of care plans in electronic format
Digital imagery and films
Internet imaging localization and archiving
Personal, adaptive, and content-based image retrieval imaging
Privacy and accuracy communications of patient records
Secure patient data storage
Secure communications of patient data
Authenticated access to patient records

eHealth information processing
Electronic imagery and visualization frameworks
Color imaging and multidimensional projections
Imaging interfaces and navigation
Medical image processing
Video techniques for medical images
Computer vision and resolution
Rapid evaluation of patient's status
Anticipative processing of patient's status
Videoconferencing
Telepresence

eHealth systems and communications
Hospital information systems
Internet/intranet services
Surgical systems
Sensor-based systems
Satellite eHealth communications
Secure data transmissions
Body-sensor networks

eHealth systems and emergency situations

Medical emergencies and communications
Detection emergencies situations
Medical resource allocation, optimization, and simulation
Real-time emergency situations management
Security and accuracy of emergency communications
Geolocalisation and optimization technology services for emergency fleet vehicles

Telemedicine/eHealth applications
Virtual telemedicine
Mobile eHealth services
Home monitoring and homecare applications
Wireless homecare
User-generated eHealth care
Personalized medicine
Wireless telemedicine
Telehomecare technologies for the elderly
Automatic detection of infectious diseases

Telemedicine/eHealth services
Clinical telemedicine
Distributed surgery
Telemedicine and telehealth
Telepathology
Telecardiology
Telerehabilitation
Elderly and impaired patient services
Remote operational medicine
Remote consulting services
Telemedicare monitoring
Vital signs monitoring
Computer generated self care advice
Telemedicine handbag

Social and financial aspects
Safety in telemedicine
Business models
Cost-benefit studies
Legal and ethical aspects
On-line payment and reimbursement issues
Ambient Assisted Living
Shared-care systems for eHealth
Privacy in the eHealth systems
Multi-lingual eHealth systems
Continuity in eHealth care

Classical medicine and eHealth integration
Wide-area integration of eHealth systems
Current eHealth realizations and projects
Innovation in eHealth
Telemedicine portals
Standardization and interconnectivity of eHealth systems
Implementation of cross-border eHealth services
eHealth integration into routine medical practice
Affordable approaches to e-Health
eHealth acceptance with medical professionals and patients
Developing countries and eHealth
Distance education for eHealth

We welcome technical papers presenting research and practical results, position papers addressing the pros and cons of specific proposals, such as those being discussed in the standard fora or in medical consortia, survey papers addressing the key problems and solutions on any of the above topics, short papers on work in progress, and panel proposals.

The topics suggested can be discussed in term of concepts, state of the art, standards, implementations, running experiments and applications. Authors are invited to submit complete unpublished papers, which are not under review in any other conference or journal in the following, but not limited topic areas.

Submissions on existing experimental systems and lessons learnt are not subject to these constraints. We expect short and long presentations that express medical and social experience in deploying telemedicine principles.

Tutorials on specific related topics and panels on challenging areas are encouraged.

INSTRUCTION FOR THE AUTHORS

The eTELEMED 2009 Proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Press and on-line via IEEE XPlore Digital Library. IEEE will index the papers with major indexes. Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions to one of the IARIA Journals. Authors of selected papers will also be invited to submit to Telemedicine and e-Health Journal.

Important deadlines:
Submission deadline September 1, 2008
Notification October 5, 2008
Registration and camera ready November 1, 2008

Only .pdf or .doc files will be accepted for paper submission. All received papers will be acknowledged via an automated system.

Final author manuscripts will be 8.5" x 11" (two columns IEEE format), not exceeding 6 pages; max 4 extra pages allowed at additional cost. The formatting instructions can be found on the Instructions page. Helpful information for paper formatting can be found on the here.

Once you receive the notification of paper acceptance, you will be provided by the IEEE CS Press an online author kit with all the steps an author needs to follow to submit the final version. The author kits URL will be included in the letter of acceptance.

Poster Forum

Posters on work-in-progress are welcome. Please submit the contributions following the instructions for the regular submissions using the "Submit a Paper" button and selecting the track/workshop preference as "POSTER : Poster Forum". Contributors are invited to submit up to four-page papers, following the conference deadlines, describing early research and novel skeleton ideas in the areas of the conference topics.

Technical marketing/business/positioning presentations

The conference initiates a series of business, technical marketing, and positioning presentations on the same topics. Speakers must submit a 10-12 slide deck presentations with substantial notes accompanying the slides, in the .ppt format (.pdf-ed). The slide deck will be published in the conference�??s CD collection, together with the regular papers. Please send your presentations to petre@iaria.org.

Tutorials

Tutorials provide overviews of current high interest topics. They should be about three hours long. Please send your proposals to petre@iaria.org

Panel proposals:

The organizers encourage scientists and industry leaders to organize dedicated panels dealing with controversial and challenging topics and paradigms. Panel moderators are asked to identify their guests and manage that their appropriate talk supports timely reach our deadlines. Moderators must specifically submit an official proposal, indicating their background, panelist names, their affiliation, the topic of the panel, as well as short biographies.

For more information, petre@iaria.org

Workshop proposals

We welcome workshop proposals on issues complementary to the topics of this conference. Your requests should be forwarded to petre@iaria.org.