In 1992 Cuba was in its worst financial and economical crisis, which made it impossible to provide all Cuban hospitals and clinics even with international specialty journals. As an alternative it was decided to explore the possibilities electronic publishing could provide to alleviate this tough situation. As a response Infomed was born (http://www.sld.cu). Infomed is the national telematic network of the Public Health System in Cuba, based on a human knowledge network for health improvement. Its mission is to promote the high quality health care, education, research, and management by using the best available technologies. Moreover, Infomed integrates the Cuban Public Health System with the global network of health information. The action plan was to set up an integrated network of accessible health information in Cuba, based on new information technologies; to interconnect the most important Cuban health institutions and to connect them with Internet; to develop added value services in public health; and to integrate the Cuban public health experiences and results with the global electronic networks.