Models for teaching healthcare informatics: a survey of healthcare informatics programs
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Healthcare informatics programs are becoming increasingly popular in higher education due to the demand in healthcare settings for employees skilled in the use of information technology. When designing healthcare informatics programs, it is important to understand existing programs but this can be difficult due to the plethora of related terms for the field. In order to better understand similarities and differences among existing educational programs related to healthcare informatics, we analyzed 51 existing undergraduate programs. Questions to be answered were: Which departments house the programs? What is the computer science content of the programs? What is the healthcare-specific content of the programs?
Our results indicate that undergraduate programs fall into one of two types: accredited health information management programs rooted in management of medical records, and health/medical informatics programs related more closely to computer science. The two types of programs are discussed in terms of curriculum and accreditations as well as implications for CS/IT departments that wish to develop offerings in this area.Keywords:
Business informatics
Public Health Informatics
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IntroductionAs information technology becomes more widely used by people for health-care decisions, training in consumer and public health informatics will be important for health practitioners working directly with the public.
Public Health Informatics
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Informatics, in the classic definition, is a science that studies “the representation, processing, and communication of information in natural and artificial systems” [1] or, more pragmatically, “a discipline focused on the acquisition, storage, and use of information in a specific setting or domain” [2], such as health care or biomedical sciences. Informatics is also increasingly described as a profession that is still at the early stages of development [3]. There is continuing self-identification of different subfields of informatics, particularly those related to biomedicine and health care, both as scientific disciplines and as professions. One aspect of defining a profession or a subspecialty within it is establishing a set of agreed upon competencies and corresponding educational curricula [3]. Yet, while the number of programs “with ‘informatics’ in their names” is growing, these programs vary substantially in level and scope [4].
Our survey attempts to provide a snapshot of the current picture of informatics training programs related to biomedicine and health care in the United States. The purpose of the survey is twofold. First, the survey is intended as a resource for students, educators, and informatics professionals. Second, through compiling detailed information about existing educational opportunities, we attempt to contribute to the definitions of various informatics subspecialties.
This is the fifth generation of surveys of informatics programs conducted by our research group; previous surveys were published online [5]. The first three surveys, carried out annually in 2002–2004, focused only on bioinformatics programs. In more recent iterations (2006 and current, 2008, versions), we moved to a biannual schedule, but broadened the survey scope to encompass medical, health, nursing, dental, and other related informatics programs. In the latest survey presented in this paper, we have also significantly expanded the information categories used to describe each program and paid special attention to grouping the program listings to better correspond to the various informatics subdisciplines. A number of web resources provide similar information, such as the International Society for Computational Biology's listing of degree and certificate programs [6] or the American Medical Informatics Association's list of training programs [7]. Our survey differs from such resources in several important ways: It cuts across the diversity of biomedical and health informatics subspecialties; it provides specific and detailed information for each program; and it presents the information in a way that facilitates comparison of programs within and between subspecialties.
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Medical librarians play a crucial role in the evolution of institutional information policy. As information professionals, they share many similarities with their medical informatics counterparts. Both groups emphasize information delivery to the point of decision making; both groups serve as curators of institutional knowledge bases. If the term "publication" encompasses the delivery of clinical information relevant to individuals or populations, both librarians and medical informaticians have an immediate interest in the nature of biomedical publishing, particularly in areas of intellectual ownership, confidentiality, distribution, and access. Both groups also have been early leaders in applying information technology to solve pressing knowledge-management problems, and both groups have a strong commitment to educating colleagues in the effective use of information. Although the challenges faced by librarians and medical informaticians are sometimes different, the evolution of information technology and new forms of biomedical communication suggest that there is now a greater convergence between the two disciplines.
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ABSTRACT This paper discusses the information needs of regulators in the face of increasing globalization in medical education and practice, the history of information resources cataloging the world's medical education institutions, and the development of a tool that can fill an information gap concerning where and how physicians around the world are educated — the World Directory of Medical Schools. The World Directory was developed to meet the needs of medical regulators and other stakeholders who rely on specific data about medical schools and their educational programs. Its data model captures information about schools and programs as separate entities, allowing for greater flexibility and utility in the areas of regulation and workforce research.
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To describe the informatics activities performed by and for local health departments.Analysis of data from the 2015 Informatics Capacity and Needs Assessment Survey of local health departments conducted by the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University in collaboration with the National Association of County & City Health Officials.324 local health departments.Informatics activities performed at or for local health departments in use and analysis of data, system design, and routine use of information systems.A majority of local health departments extract data from information systems (69.5%) and use and interpret quantitative (66.4%) and qualitative (55.1%) data. Almost half use geographic information systems (45.0%) or statistical or other analytical software (39.7%). Local health departments were less likely to perform project management (35.8%), business process analysis and redesign (24.0%), and developing requirements for informatics system development (19.7%). Local health departments were most likely to maintain or modify content of a Web site (72.1%). A third of local health departments (35.8%) reported acting as "super users" for their information systems. A significantly higher proportion of local health departments serving larger jurisdictions (500 000+) and those with shared governance reported conducting informatics activities.Most local health department informatics activities are completed by local health department staff within each department or a central department, but many state health departments also contribute to informatics at the local level. Larger local health departments and those with shared governance were more likely to perform informatics activities. Local health departments need effective leadership, a skilled workforce, strong partnerships, and policies that foster implementation of health information systems to successfully engage in informatics. Local health departments also face important training needs, including data analytics, project management, and geographical information systems, so they can adapt to the increasing availability of electronic data and changes in technology.
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Generation Y workers are slowly gathering critical mass in the healthcare sector. The sustainability of future healthcare is highly dependent on this group of workers. This generation of workers loves technology and thrives in stimulating environments. They have great thirst for life-experience and therefore they move from one working environment to the other. The healthcare system has a hierarchical operational, information and knowledge structure, which unfortunately might not be the ideal ground to integrate with generation Y. The challenges ahead present a fantastic opportunity for electronic health implementation and knowledge management to flourish. Generation Y workers, however, have very different expectation of technology utilisation, technology design and knowledge presentation. This paper will argue that a clear understanding of this group of workers is essential for researchers in health informatics and knowledge management in order to provide socio-technical integrated solution for this group of future workers. The sustainability of a quality healthcare system will depend upon the integration of generation Y, health informatics and knowledge management strategies in a re-invented healthcare system.
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Technology is one of the most pervasive and ubiquitous tools in healthcare today. It is not only transforming healthcare but also the professions within it. For those of us teaching health informatics over the years, being unable to steer students and other interested people to a comprehensive text on the subject has been trying. The idea for this text was conceived during a meeting with a broad range of stakeholders; it was born from frustration and nurtured by a number of people engaged in health informatics - some without even realising they were! This book provides information, knowledge and skills necessary to understand the collection, storage, retrieval, communication and optimal use of health-related data, information and knowledge. It addresses a wide range of the most essential and current areas of health informatics and is divided into seven sections.
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Information technology, medical knowledge, and medical practice are on a collision course. The consequences of the impact will change the way physicians work, the way medical knowledge is processed, packaged, and distributed, and the way patients obtain medical care and information. Today's educators need to design an information technology curriculum to prepare students for this emerging world of practice. Computer labs, based on today's complex and unreliable desktop systems, are not the answer. What is needed by students who entered medical school in 1997-98 is an informatics curriculum that is based on the real-world requirements of 2003 and beyond. The authors draw upon academic studies and their own clinical and industry experiences to outline some predictable elements of what lies ahead. Their predictions--ubiquitous, simple network computing and "power tools" for managing medical knowledge--have implications for how schools cover such educational topics as patient confidentiality, systems thinking and error management, and knowledge resource evaluation.
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The objective of this study was to explore public health informatics (PHI) training programs that currently exist to meet the growing demand for a trained global workforce. We used several search engines, scientific databases, and the websites of informatics organizations; sources included PubMed, Google, the American Medical Informatics Organization, and the International Medical Informatics Organization. The search was conducted from May to July 2011 and from January to February 2012 using key words such as informatics, public health informatics, or biomedical informatics along with academic programs, training, certificate, graduate programs, or postgraduate programs. Course titles and catalog descriptions were gathered from the program or institution websites. Variables included PHI program categories, location and mode of delivery, program credits, and costs. Each course was then categorized based on its title and description as available on the Internet. Finally, we matched course titles and descriptions with the competencies for PHIs determined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Descriptive analysis was performed to report means and frequency distributions for continuous and categorical variables. Stratified analysis was performed to explore average credits and cost per credit among both the public and private institutions. Fifteen PHI programs were identified across 13 different institutions, the majority of which were US-based. The average number of credits and the associated costs required to obtain PHI training were much higher in private as compared to public institutions. The study results suggest that a need for online contextual and cost-effective PHI training programs exists to address the growing needs of professionals worldwide who are using technology to improve public health in their respective countries.
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Health care continuing education (CE) professionals and health sciences librarians have many common goals, including (1) identifying information seeking behaviors of health professionals, (2) providing the information that has the most impact on clinical practice, and (3) educating health professionals in the use of new information technologies so that they may independently seek information needed to solve problems. Lack of familiarity with evolving technologies for information management, a shortage of local technologic resources and expertise, and limited knowledge of the librarian's role as an educator can pose obstacles to the immediate use of libraries in CE. However, by consolidating local and regional resources, CE and library professionals can work together in many ways: (1) carrying out research studies on information needs of health professionals to target specific areas for CE; (2) conducting demonstrations and hands-on training in the use of computer systems and software for accessing health care resources; and (3) developing tailored educational programs covering information management skills, such as searching MEDLINE or using file management software.
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