worker in these areas. The first conference was organized in November 1986, in the city of Campinas by Dr. Renato M.E. Sabbatini. The vice-president was Dr. Hugo Sabatino, and the editor-in-chief of the Conference's proceedings was Dr. Renato G.G. Terzi, all with the Medical School at the same university. During this conference, the Brazilian Society of Health Informatics was launched, as well as the Brazilian Journal of Health Informatics. The conference was then repeated in 1988 (São Paulo), 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996 (Campos do Jordão), 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 (Natal), 2006 (Florianópolis) and 2008 (Campos do Jordão). The next conference will be held in November 2010, in Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco. Publications SBIS' flagship periodical is the on-line scientific journal, Journal of Health Informatics (Heimar Marin, Editor-in-Chief). It also publishes SBIS News, an electronic bulletin hosted by Yahoo! Groups (Renato M.E. Sabbatini, editor-in-chief), and coordinates the SBIS-L e-mail discussion list. Electronic Health Record Certification Project In collaboration with the Brazilian Federal Council of Medicine since 2007, SBIS has developed one of few programs in the developing world geared towards the software certification in the area of electronic health records. The standards for access, information security, digital certification, patient confidentiality, storage of records, etc., have been discussed together and officially approved by a number of decrees enforced by CFM and are part now of a Manual, a course for buildup of a task force of specialized consultants. The certification standards cover ambulatory healthcare, clinical laboratory and other areas, and in the future will be expanded for inpatient health records and Picture archiving and communication system. Professional Education In 2008 the Society approved the creation of a new initiative and a directorship to boost educational activities in health informatics. A website and a Learning Management System based on Moodle server were created in 2009 (address ). The site is used to support presential courses as well as to offer purely distance courses, seminars, lectures, and other educational activities. The site has also a digital library with on-line references to papers, reviews, e-books, multimedia files, etc., which are deemed useful for education and learning purposes. In addition, webconferencing facilities using DimDim have been added and can be used by associated individuals and institutions. Professional Certificate in Health Informatics In October 2009 the Society launched a program for certificating health care professionals as specialists, in a manner similar to medical specialties coordinated by the