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Bichel-Findlay J, Koch S, Mantas J, Abdul SS, Al-Shorbaji N, Ammenwerth E, Baum A, Borycki EM, Demiris G, Hasman A, Hersh W, Hovenga E, Huebner UH, Huesing ES, Kushniruk A, Hwa Lee K, Lehmann CU, Lillehaug SI, Marin HF, Marschollek M, Martin-Sanchez F, Merolli M, Nishimwe A, Saranto K, Sent D, Shachak A, Udayasankaran JG, Were MC, Wright G. Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics: Second Revision. Int J Med Inform 2023; 170:104908. [PMID: 36502741 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2022.104908] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/04/2022] [Accepted: 10/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The purpose of educational recommendations is to assist in establishing courses and programs in a discipline, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations, and to support international initiatives for collaboration and sharing of courseware. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has published two versions of its international recommendations in biomedical and health informatics (BMHI) education, initially in 2000 and revised in 2010. Given the recent changes to the science, technology, the needs of the healthcare systems, and the workforce of BMHI, a revision of the recommendations is necessary. OBJECTIVE The aim of these updated recommendations is to support educators in developing BMHI curricula at different education levels, to identify essential skills and competencies for certification of healthcare professionals and those working in the field of BMHI, to provide a tool for evaluators of academic BMHI programs to compare and accredit the quality of delivered programs, and to motivate universities, organizations, and health authorities to recognize the need for establishing and further developing BMHI educational programs. METHOD An IMIA taskforce, established in 2017, updated the recommendations. The taskforce included representatives from all IMIA regions, with several having been involved in the development of the previous version. Workshops were held at different IMIA conferences, and an international Delphi study was performed to collect expert input on new and revised competencies. RESULTS Recommendations are provided for courses/course tracks in BMHI as part of educational programs in biomedical and health sciences, health information management, and informatics/computer science, as well as for dedicated programs in BMHI (leading to bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree). The educational needs are described for the roles of BMHI user, BMHI generalist, and BMHI specialist across six domain areas - BMHI core principles; health sciences and services; computer, data and information sciences; social and behavioral sciences; management science; and BMHI specialization. Furthermore, recommendations are provided for dedicated educational programs in BMHI at the level of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. These are the mainstream academic programs in BMHI. In addition, recommendations for continuing education, certification, and accreditation procedures are provided. CONCLUSION The IMIA recommendations reflect societal changes related to globalization, digitalization, and digital transformation in general and in healthcare specifically, and center on educational needs for the healthcare workforce, computer scientists, and decision makers to acquire BMHI knowledge and skills at various levels. To support education in BMHI, IMIA offers accreditation of quality BMHI education programs. It supports information exchange on programs and courses in BMHI through its Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sabine Koch
- Health Informatics Centre, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
| | - John Mantas
- Health Informatics Lab, School of Health Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
| | - Shabbir S Abdul
- Graduate Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan
| | | | - Elske Ammenwerth
- UMIT - Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Hall in Tirol, Austria
| | - Analia Baum
- Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Health Informatics Department, Argentina
| | | | - George Demiris
- Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Arie Hasman
- Department of Medical Informatics Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, The Netherlands
| | - William Hersh
- Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, United States
| | - Evelyn Hovenga
- Digital Health, Australian Catholic University, Australia
| | - Ursula H Huebner
- Hochschule Osnabrueck - University AS Osnabrueck, Department of Business Management and Social Sciences, Germany
| | | | - Andre Kushniruk
- School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Canada
| | - Kye Hwa Lee
- Department of Information Medicine, Asan Medical Center and University of Ulsan College of Medicine, South Korea
| | - Christoph U Lehmann
- Clinical Informatics Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States
| | | | | | - Michael Marschollek
- Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics of TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Germany
| | | | - Mark Merolli
- Department of Physiotherapy, School of Health Sciences, Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine, Centre for Digital Transformation of Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia
| | - Aurore Nishimwe
- Health Informatics Program, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, Rwanda
| | - Kaija Saranto
- Health and Human Services Informatics, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
| | - Danielle Sent
- Department of Medical Informatics Amsterdam UMC, location AMC, The Netherlands
| | - Aviv Shachak
- Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (Dalla Lana School of Public Health), University of Toronto, Canada
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Haux R, Kulikowski CA, Bakken S, de Lusignan S, Kimura M, Koch S, Mantas J, Maojo V, Marschollek M, Martin-Sanchez F, Moen A, Park HA, Sarkar IN, Leong TY, McCray AT. Research Strategies for Biomedical and Health Informatics. Some Thought-provoking and Critical Proposals to Encourage Scientific Debate on the Nature of Good Research in Medical Informatics. Methods Inf Med 2017; 56:e1-e10. [PMID: 28119991 PMCID: PMC5388922 DOI: 10.3414/me16-01-0125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2016] [Accepted: 11/17/2016] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Medical informatics, or biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), has become an established scientific discipline. In all such disciplines there is a certain inertia to persist in focusing on well-established research areas and to hold on to well-known research methodologies rather than adopting new ones, which may be more appropriate. OBJECTIVES To search for answers to the following questions: What are research fields in informatics, which are not being currently adequately addressed, and which methodological approaches might be insufficiently used? Do we know about reasons? What could be consequences of change for research and for education? METHODS Outstanding informatics scientists were invited to three panel sessions on this topic in leading international conferences (MIE 2015, Medinfo 2015, HEC 2016) in order to get their answers to these questions. RESULTS A variety of themes emerged in the set of answers provided by the panellists. Some panellists took the theoretical foundations of the field for granted, while several questioned whether the field was actually grounded in a strong theoretical foundation. Panellists proposed a range of suggestions for new or improved approaches, methodologies, and techniques to enhance the BMHI research agenda. CONCLUSIONS The field of BMHI is on the one hand maturing as an academic community and intellectual endeavour. On the other hand vendor-supplied solutions may be too readily and uncritically accepted in health care practice. There is a high chance that BMHI will continue to flourish as an important discipline; its innovative interventions might then reach the original objectives of advancing science and improving health care outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Reinhold Haux
- Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, University of Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Germany
| | - Casimir A. Kulikowski
- Department of Computer Science, Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey, NJ, USA
| | - Suzanne Bakken
- School of Nursing and Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Simon de Lusignan
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
| | - Michio Kimura
- Medical Informatics Department, School of Medicine, Hamamatsu University, Shizuoka, Japan
| | - Sabine Koch
- Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Health Informatics Centre, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - John Mantas
- Health Informatics Laboratory, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Victor Maojo
- Biomedical Informatics Group, Artificial Intelligence Department, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Michael Marschollek
- Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, University of Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Germany
| | - Fernando Martin-Sanchez
- Department of Healthcare Policy and Research, Division of Health Informatics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Anne Moen
- Institute for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Institute for Health Sciences, University College of South East Norway, Drammen, Norway
| | - Hyeoun-Ae Park
- College of Nursing and Systems Biomedical Informatics Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Indra Neil Sarkar
- Center for Biomedical Informatics, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
| | - Tze Yun Leong
- Medical Computing Laboratory, School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore
- School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University, Singapore
| | - Alexa T. McCray
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
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Hersh W. The health information technology workforce: estimations of demands and a framework for requirements. Appl Clin Inform 2010; 1:197-212. [PMID: 23616836 PMCID: PMC3632279 DOI: 10.4338/aci-2009-11-r-0011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2009] [Accepted: 06/07/2010] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND There is increasing recognition that a competent and well-trained workforce is required for successful implementation of health information technology. METHODS New and previous research was gathered through literature and Web searching as well as domain experts. Overall themes were extracted and specific data collated within each. RESULTS There is still a paucity of research concerning the health information technology workforce. What research has been done can be classified into five categories: quantities and staffing ratios, job roles, gaps and growth, leadership qualifications, and education and competencies. From several countries it can be seen that substantial numbers of individuals are needed with diverse backgrounds and competencies. CONCLUSIONS Additional research is necessary to determine the optimal organization and education of the health information technology workforce.
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Affiliation(s)
- W. Hersh
- Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
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