Rolf Hansen (1931-1993) was one of pioneers of Medical informatics. He was an organized and pragmatic medical IT scientist who developed respected and pioneering health information systems at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway (1-4).
At the time of his death in the year of the 1993, when he was 62 years old, he had just become the President of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI). He has played an active and important role in the development of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) and also International Association of Medical Informatics (IMIA).
He has participated in founding of EFMI as Fonding member in the year 1976 in Copenhagen. He had been a member of the Executive Board of the European Federation for Medical Informatics from 1982 to 1986, later, as Secretary from 1989 to 1990 and as Vice President from 1991 to 1992.
He took responsibility as the Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the very successful Medical Informatics Conference (MIE 1988), official Medical informatics congress in Oslo in 1988, together with Bjarte Solheim and many others (5). He also worked as a member of the Editorial board of many journals of Medical Informatics (5).
We need to say that Rolf Hansen has been recognized as one of the Medical informatics experts who have had great contribution to the development of Medical Informatics worldwide. With deep regret we had to learn that Rolf Hansen was Deputy Director of the Norwegian National Institute of Public Health, one of very important public health institutions in Europe in that time.
Rolf Hansen represented Society of Medical informatics of Norway in the EFMI Council since it was established in Copenhagen in 1976.
In Norway, Rolf Hansen was initiator, driving force project leader and/or motivator of major Norwegian projects in Medical Informatics like MSIS, SYSVAK, OMI, NIT Hospital Information System, the Injury Surveillance System and, also, NORA - the Norwegian Hospital Record project.
He was Advisor to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and to the Directorate of Health on matters regarding Medical Informatics, classification systems etc., and Leader of the Secretariat of the National Policy Committee for use of Information Technologies (IT) in Health Care.
For his friends Rolf has been the experienced and warmhearted teacher and colleague and have had many international friends. He has truly contributed to the global network of excellence and friendship which make out European Federation for Medical Informatics and International Association of Medical Informatics.
Council of the European Federation for Medical Informatics established, on behalf his name, Award “Rolf Hansen Award” for the best paper for participants of MIE Conferences, and every year, started at MIE 2018 held in Gothenburg, author(s) of the best paper received that award (6).
REFERENCES
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- 6. http://infohistory.rutgers.edu/imia-documents/1993/1993%20Newsletter%207-3%20Sep.pdf.