"The MIE'97 Conference (Medical Informatics Europe) is the fourteenth conference in the area of medical informatics that commenced in 1978 in Cambridge. This conference is held for two consecutive years in Europe before migrating in the third year to a country outside Europe where it is held under the name of MEDINFO. Through the years this conference has evolved into the major international event in the medical informatics area. The proceedings contain 192 high quality papers in the area of medical informatics that set the tone for future developments in this field of science. These papers were selected from 255 submissions based on reviews by two or more impartial reviewers. The paper selection criteria were based on 1) significance to medical informatics, healthcare and/or medicine, 2) quality of scientific and/or technical content, 3) originality and innovativeness, 4) reference to related prior work, and 5) organisation and clarity of presentation"--Preface.