BCS Health and Care
BCS Health and Care was formed to cover all aspects of informatics in support of health and care, a sector of particular relevance and importance to BCS.
Past events
About us
Technology has radically changed what is possible in health and care in the 21st century. Remarkable advances have been made in diagnostics, therapy and communication. However, our care services still face substantial challenges in quality and safety, productivity, integration, accessibility and workforce. Digital products can contribute to improvement in all these areas, but technology alone is not a magic wand. If badly designed or implemented, it can be harmful.
BCS Health & Care has the mission to promote evidence-based best practice and responsible innovation in digital transformation. This work is inherently multidisciplinary, so needs qualified professionals in all relevant fields: clinical, technical, managerial and strategic. We need to consider digital technology and standards across the spectrum of architecture, infrastructure, data, information, knowledge and practice. The aim is to build learning health and care systems, which will evolve and learn with us.
BCS has been active in health and care since the 1960s. Our early leading figures were among the global pioneers of healthcare computing. In the 1970s, BCS was a founder member of the European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI) and the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). Since then BCS has remained actively involved with the international societies, and in 2025 we will host the EFMI conference Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) in Glasgow. BCS is also active as a learned society - for many years we published Informatics in Primary Care as an official BCS journal, which is now co-published as BMJ Health & Care Informatics.
During 2024, we are welcoming former members, fellows and special interest groups of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics (FCI) into the BCS family. Since FCI has ceased to operate, BCS is now hosting many of their reports, notably the core competency framework.
BCS Health & Care is now on a journey to become the Faculty of Health & Care, launching with an inaugural conference on 10 October 2024. Development of the new Faculty will be an iterative process and we will adapt to the needs of our expanded membership and the input of our stakeholders, including the other professional bodies in the wider informatics field as represented in the Federation for Informatics Professionals (FEDIP). We warmly invite members to get involved in helping to get the shape the Faculty as an energetic and influential body that is fit for the future of health and care. Contribute to our Discourse conversation by accepting this invitation here.
