In March 1986, a Canadian colloquium with an international flavor was convened to
discuss the impact of information technology on community health. It was sponsored
by the School of Health Information Science at the University of Victoria and the British
Columbia Ministry of Health. Notable speakers were Salah Mandil, the Director of
Information Systems Service at the World Health Organization, and Stan Dubas, the
Deputy Minister of Health for British Columbia. This small, successful gathering was
the predecessor of the Information Technology in Community Health (ITCH) conferences
that followed in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000.