The 2017 recipients of the IMIA Award of Excellence were honoured at MedInfo 2017 in Hangzhou, China and the Nominating Committee was lead by IMIA President Dr. Hyeoun-Ae Park.

Dr. Hyeoun-Ae Park, IMIA’s President, presented the François Grémy Award of Excellence on Tuesday, August 22nd, at the opening ceremony of MedInfo 2017. “I am very honored, as IMIA’s President, to confer this accolade to KC Lun and Fernan Gonzalez,” said Dr. Hyeoun-Ae Park. “They are extremely well recognized colleagues in our field and it is a momentous occasion for IMIA to recognize their outstanding achievements and contributions to the field of Biomedical and Health Informatics globally.”

Dr. Fernán Gonzalez Bernaldo de Quirós, MD MSc is a leader in medical informatics in Argentina and has made many important international contributions in research and education. He is currently the Vice Director of Strategic Planning, the Chair of Human Physiology at the School of Medicine, and the Head of the Area of Research in the Internal Medicine Division of Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires (HIBA). He is Director of the Masters Degree in Clinical Research at HIBA. He is the Director of the Masters Degree on Health Informatics at HIBA. On 2011 he was elected as international fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) and has recently been elected as part of the first class of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI).

“I am greatly humbled and honored to be receiving the IMIA François Grémy award of Excellence. I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to IMIA as well as those who nominated me for this award.”, said Dr. Gonzalez Bernaldo de Quirós.  “I feel that this award is not only for me but I make it extensive to all the team at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires in Argentina who have been working in the last 20 years in developing a Health Information System that has been widely recognized and our experience and staff has inspired other institutions around the Latin American region.”

Dr. Gonzalez Bernaldo de Quirós further commented, “We are proud to be part of the IMIA community not only as representatives of Argentina but, also as recognized Academic Members since we have been working on training residents in health informatics and other representatives of the workforce of the discipline.  For me, it is also a great honor that my fellow colleagues and friends from the Latin American region have promoted my nomination, since we are all working to make IMIA-LAC a strong region and working group.”

Dr. K C Lun is a pioneer of medical informatics in Asia.  Since presenting his first scientific paper at MEDINFO 86 in Washington DC, his contributions to IMIA include hosting the financially successful MEDINFO 89 in Singapore, chairing the Editorial Committee for MEDINFO 92 in Geneva, founding the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI) in 1994 and assuming the IMIA Presidency in 2001.   For 26 years, Dr Lun served on the Faculty of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and held positions as Director of its Medical Informatics Research Program (1996-2001) and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Health Informatics (1990-2001).  His pioneering efforts in medical e-learning at NUS also earned him the Teaching Excellence Award in 1998.   He is also credited as the creator of Cyberspace Hospital, the first virtual hospital on the World Wide Web, launched in 1995 and has undertaken consultancies in biostatistics and health informatics for WHO, IMIA, IDRC, UNDP and several other international agencies.

He has served as Editor (Asia Pacific) of the International Journal of Medical Informatics and editorial board member of the IJMI and Methods of Information in Medicine. For his contributions to the development of medical informatics nationally and internationally, Dr Lun was awarded the prestigious Excellence for Singapore Award in 2002.  After a rewarding career in academia spanning over nearly 40 years, Dr Lun set up Gateway Consulting in Singapore in 2006 to keep himself active in retirement. Passionate about staying ahead of the curve, Dr Lun now focuses on the use of his repertoire of skill sets in biostatistics, health informatics, epidemiology, research methods and medical demography to position himself in healthcare analytics.

“I am privileged to be the first Asian to be recognized for the IMIA François Grémy Award of Excellence and at a most significant time, the 50th Anniversary of IMIA. “, said Dr. Lun.  “When I presented the first award in 2004, then known as the IMIA Award of Excellence, to François Grémy himself, in my capacity as IMIA President at that time, I would never have thought that I would someday join the ranks of François and all the distinguished recipients that came after him.”

 

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