HealthGrid 2009 is the seventh meeting of this open forum for the integration of grid technologies, e-science and e-health methods and their applications in the biomedical and healthcare domains. The principal objective of the HealthGrid conference and of the HealthGrid Association is the exchange and debate of ideas, technologies, solutions and requirements that interest the grid and the life-science communities and are likely to promote the integration of grids into biomedical research and health in the broadest sense.

Subjects in this publication reflect the anticipated, though slow, move towards real applications. The first topic that will be discussed is Accessibility, the challenge of making Grids more accessible to bio-medical users and the fraught issue of usability. The next focal area is Core Technologies and Data Integration. This area will be followed by the topic Applications. The debate on Ethical, Legal, Social and Economic (ELSE) Issues is combined with another prominent topic, the Future of Grids.