The 8th Nursing Research Conference of Japan Society of Nursing Diagnosis, "Nursing Diagnosis and Informatics: The Meeting of Care and Technology," will be held Friday, July 19, and Saturday, July 20, 2002, in Aomori City Cultural Hall, Aomori, Japan.

The 21st century is being called the information age, and true to its name, people around the world are using information technology in all areas for either the benefit or detriment of society. The field of nursing involves recognizing the patient as a total human entity. I am sure you are all well aware of the developments that have been made in nursing diagnosis to provide the people under our care with the appropriate nursing diagnosis and care they need. From the start, the goal has been to systematize information by computer, but now that many hospitals are promoting the systematization of medical information, the momentum towards systematizing nursing information has increased. The theme for this meeting was chosen with the idea of looking into the systematization of nursing diagnosis.

The President's Address, "Trends and Current Status of the Computerization of Nursing Diagnosis," will be delivered by Sachie Shindo, PhD, RN, Dean, Aomori University of Health and Welfare. Margaret Lunney, PhD, RN, College of Staten Island, New York, will lecture on "Critical Thinking and Accuracy of Nursing Diagnosis as a Foundation for Computer-Based Documentation." Judy Ozbolt, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, will speak on "International Standards for Nursing Terminology: Effects on Nursing Diagnosis."

We welcome the participation of the members of NANDA.

Insights
The uniqueness of Nursing Informatics in Asia is that they have organization for each country. for the country of japan, they conduct a conference for the systematization of nursing diagnosis. this is a good sign that nursing informatics is progressing and is being implemented. they invited speakers from different country to talk about different topics. with this conference development will be born.