Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics

Summary

Objective: The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) agreed on revising the existing international recommendations in health informatics /medical informatics education. These should help to establish courses, course tracks or even complete programs in this field, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations and to support international initiatives concerning education in biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), particularly international activities in educating BMHI specialists and the sharing of courseware.

Method: An IMIA task force, nominated in 2006, worked on updating the recommendations’ first version. These updates have been broadly discussed and refined by members of IMIA’s National Member Societies, IMIA’s Academic Institutional Members and by members of IMIA’s Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education.

Results and Conclusions: The IMIA recommendations center on educational needs for health care professionals to acquire knowledge and skills in information processing and information and communication technology. The educational needs are described as a three-dimensional framework. The dimensions are: 1) professionals in health care (e.g. physicians, nurses, BMHI professionals), 2) type of specialization in BMHI (IT users, BMHI specialists), and 3) stage of career progression (bachelor, master, doctorate).

Learning outcomes are defined in terms of knowledge and practical skills for health care professionals in their role a) as IT user and b) as BMHI specialist. Recommendations are given for courses /course tracks in BMHI as part of educational programs in medicine, nursing, health care management, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, health record administration, and informatics /computer science as well as for dedicated programs in BMHI (with bachelor, master or doctor degree).

To support education in BMHI, IMIA offers to award a certificate for high-quality BMHI education. It supports information exchange on programs and courses in BMHI through its Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education.

Keywords

Medical informatics - health informatics - biomedical informatics - education - recommendations - International Medical Informatics Association - IMIA

• References

• 1 Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on education in health and medical informatics.. Methods Inf Med 2000; 39: 267-277. http://www.imia.org/pubdocsrec_english.pdf". Last access: August 29, 2009
• 2 IMIA Yearbooks of Medical Informatics.. http://www.imiapubs.org and http://www.schattauer.de/index.php?id=imia. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 3 Haux R, Swinkels W, Ball MJ, Knaup P, Lun KC. editors. Special Issue on health and medical informatics education: transformation of healthcare through innovative use of information technology. Proceedings of the 1997 IMIA Working Group on Education Meeting. Int J Med Inform 1998; 50: 1-300.
• 4 Hersh WR, Gorman P. editors. Teach Globally, Learn Locally. Proceedings of the 2003 IMIA Working Group on Education Meeting. Int J Med Inform 2004; 73: 95-213.
• 5 Mantas J. editor. Health and medical informatics education. Proceedings of the 2005 IMIA Working Group on Education Meeting. Methods Inf Med 2007; 46: 50-92.
• 6 Hersh WR, Otero P, Bernaldo de Quirós FG. editors. Building Worldwide Capacity for the Health Informatics Workforce. Proceedings of the 2008 IMIA Working Group on Education Meeting. Methods Inf Med (to appear).
• 7 Hasman A, Albert A, Wainwright P, Klar R, Sosa M. editors. Education and training in health informatics in Europe. Amsterdam: IOS Press; 1995
• 8 Mantas J. Health and nursing informatics education. Stud Health Technol Inform 1998; 56: 146-152.
• 9 Mantas J. Future trends in health informatics – theoretical and practical. Stud Health Technol Inform 2004; 109: 114-127.
• 10 Garg AX, Adhikari NK, McDonald H, Rosas Arellano MP, Devereaux PJ, Beyene J, Sam J, Haynes RB. Effects of computerized clinical decision support systems on practitioner performance and patient outcomes: a systematic review. JAMA 2005; 293: 1223-1238.
• 11 Chaudhry B, Wang J, Wu S, Maglione M, Mojica W, Roth E, Morton SC, Shekelle PG. Systematic review: impact of health information technology on quality, efficiency, and costs of medical care. Ann Intern Med 2006; 144: 742-752.
• 12 Hersh WR, Hickam DH, Severance SM, Dana TL, Pyle Krages K, Helfand M. Diagnosis, access and outcomes: Update of a systematic review of tele-medicine services. J Telemed Telecare 2006; 12 Suppl 2: S3-31.
• 13 Lorenzi NM. E-health strategies worldwide. In: Haux R, Kulikowski C. editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2005. Stuttgart: Schattauer; 2005. pp 157-164.
• 14 Hasman A, Haux R. Modeling in biomedical informatics – an exploratory analysis (part 1). Methods Inf Med 2006; 45: 638-642.
• 15 Hasman A, Haux R. Modeling in biomedical informatics: an exploratory analysis (part 2). Int J Med Inform 2007; 76: 96-102.
• 16 Kuhn KA, Knoll A, Mewes HW, Schwaiger M, Bode A. et al. Informatics and medicine – from molecules to populations. Methods Inf Med 2008; 47: 283-295.
• 17 Payne PR, Johnson SB, Starren JB, Tilson HH, Dowdy D. Breaking the translational barriers: the value of integrating biomedical informatics and translational research. J Investig Med 2005; 53: 192-200.
• 18 Zerhouni EA. Translational research: moving discovery to practice. Clin Pharmacol Ther 2007; 81: 126-128.
• 19 Baxevanis AD, Ouellette BFF. Bioinformatics: a practical guide to the analysis of genes and proteins. Third Edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Interscience; 2005
• 20 Hovenga EJS, Mantas J. Global Health Informatics Education. Amsterdam: IOS Press; 2004
• 21 Jaspers MW, Gardner RM, Gatewood LC, Haux R, Schmidt D, Wetter T. The International Partnership for Health Informatics Education: lessons learned from six years of experience. Methods Inf Med 2005; 44: 25-31.
• 22 Otero P, Hersh W. et al. Translation, implementation and evaluation of a medical informatics distance learning course for Latin America. MEDINFO 2007 – Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress on Health (Medical) Informatics. Brisbane, Australia: IOS Press; 2007. CD-ROM P421.
• 23 Ball MJ, Silva JS, Bierstock S, Douglas JV, Norcio AF, Chakraborty J, Srini J. Failure to provide clinicians useful IT systems: opportunities to leapfrog current technologies. Methods Inf Med 2008; 47: 4-7.
• 24 Hersh W. Health care information technology: progress and barriers. JAMA 2004; 292: 2273-2274.
• 25 Poon EG, Blumenthal D, Jaggi T, Honour MM, Bates DW, Kaushal R. Overcoming barriers to adopting and implementing computerized physician order entry systems in U. S. hospitals. Health Aff (Millwood) 2004; 23: 184-190.
• 26 Hersh W. Who are the informaticians? What we know and should know. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2006; 13: 166-170.
• 27 Hersh W. Health and biomedical informatics: opportunities and challenges for a twenty-first century profession and its education. Yearb Med Inform 2008 pp 157-164.
• 28 Hersh W. A stimulus to define informatics and health information technology. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 2009; 9: 24.
• 29 Schuemie MJ, Talmon JL, Moorman PW, Kors JA. Mapping the domain of medical informatics. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 76-83.
• 30 Roberts J. Developing health informatics as a recognised professional domain supporting clinical and health management activity. World Hosp Health Serv 2006; 42: 38-40.
• 31 Joyub R. The professionalisation of health informatics in the United Kingdom. UK Health Informatics Today 2004; 42 Spring 1-4.
• 32 Klar R. Official catalogue of subject matters in medical informatics for German medical students. In: [7], pp 145-152.
• 33 Scope and Standards of Nursing Informatics Practice. Washington, DC: American Nurses Association; 2008
• 34 Detmer DE, Lumpkin JR, Williamson JJ. Defining the medical subspecialty of clinical informatics. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2009; 16: 167-168.
• 35 Safran C, Shabot MM, Munger BS, Holmes JH, Steen EB, Lumpkin JR. et al. Program requirements for fellowship education in the subspecialty of clinical informatics. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2009; 16: 158-166. Erratum in: J Am Med Inform Assoc 2009; 16: 605.
• 36 Leven FJ. Curriculum for medical informatics at the University of Heidelberg/School of Technology Heilbronn. Methods Inf Med 1994; 33: 262-267.
• 37 Knaup P, Haag M, Leven FJ, Dickhaus H. Challenges in the evolution of the medical informatics program at Heidelberg/Heilbronn (Germany). Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 66-75.
• 38 Moehr JR. English Translation of the Minutes of the Invitational Workshop Goals, Contents and Methods for Education in Medical Informatics Haux R, Kulikowski C, editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2004.. Stuttgart: Schattauer; 2004. pp 210-219.
• 39 Moehr JR. The Quest for Identity of Health Informatics and for Guidance to Education in it – The German Reisensburg Conference of 1973 Revisited. Haux R, Kulikowski C, editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2004. Stuttgart: Schattauer; 2004. pp 201-210.
• 40 Duncan KA Austing RH, Katz S, Pengov RE, Pogue RE, Wasserman AIl. Health Computing: Curriculum for an emerging profession – report of the ACM curriculum committee on health computing education. Proceedings of the 1978 ACM Annual Conference/Annual Meeting. Washington, DC: ACM Press; 1978 pp 277-285. portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=804112&type=pdf&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=47975758& CFTOKEN=19987037. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 41 Physicians for the twenty-first century (The GPEP Report). Washington: Association of the American Medical Colleges; 1984
• 42 Haux R, Dudeck J, Gaus W, Leven FJ, Kunath H, Michaelis J. et al. Recommendations of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology for education and training in medical informatics. Methods Inf Med 1992; 31: 60-70.
• 43 Hasman A, Albert A. Education and training in health informatics: guidelines for European curricula. Int J Med Inform 1997; 45: 91-110.
• 44 Council of Europe Committee of Ministers (1995). Recommendations No. R (90) 21 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on training strategies for health information systems. In: [7], pp 3-6.
• 45 Mantas J. Developing curriculum in nursing informatics in Europe. Int J Med Inform 1998; 50: 123-132.
• 46 Mantas J. NIGHTINGALE – a new perspective in nursing informatics education in Europe. Stud Health Technol Inform 1998; 51: 102-113.
• 47 Enabling People Programme & English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting.. Information for caring: integrating informatics into learning programmes for nurses, midwives and health visitors. Birmingham: Institute of Health and Care Development; 1997
• 48 National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP): A national informatics agenda for nursing education and practice. Washington DC: US Department of Health and Human Services. Division of Nursing: 1997. http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/16/d3/da.pdf. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 49 Medical School Objectives Project.. Medical Informatics Objectives. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges; 1999. http://www.aamc.org/meded/msop/start.htm. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 50 Schleyer T. Competencies for Dental Informatics V 1.0. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Center for Dental Informatics; 1999. http://www.dental.pitt.edu/informatics/competencies.php. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 51 Health Informatics Competency Profiles for the NHS. London: National Health Service Information Authority; 2001
• 52 Staggers N, Gassert CA, Curran C. A Delphi study to determine informatics competencies at four levels of practice. Nursing Res 2002; 51: 383-390.
• 53 Covvey HD, Zitner D, Bernstein R. Pointing the way: competencies and curricula in health informatics. Waterloo, Ontario: University of Waterloo; 2001. http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/health_infohealth_docs/CurriculaMASTERDocument Version1Final.zip. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 54 Mantas J Hasman A. editors. Textbook in health informatics – a nursing perspective. Amsterdam: IOS Press; 2001
• 55 O’Carroll PW. Public Health Informatics Competencies Working Group. Informatics competencies for public health professionals. Seattle, Wa: Northwest Center for Public Health Practice; 2002. http://www.nwcphp.org/docs/phi/comps/phi_print.pdf. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 56 Curran CR. Informatics competencies for nurse practitioners. AACN Clin Issues 2003; 14: 320-330.
• 57 Friedman CP, Altman RB, Kohane IS, McCormick KA, Miller PL, Ozbolt JG. et al.; American College of Medical Informatics. Training the next generation of informaticians: the impact of “BISTI” and bioinformatics – a report from the American College of Medical Informatics. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2004; 11: 167-172.
• 58 HIM Baccalaureate Degree Entry-Level Competencies. Chicago, IL: American Health Information Management Association; 2004. http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/public/documentsahima/bok1_025415.pdf. Last access: October 2, 2009
• 59 Garde S, Hovenga E. Australian health informatics educational framework. Brunswick East, Australia: Australian College of Health Informatics; 2006 http://www.achi.org.au/sites/default/files/Health_Informatics_Educational_Framework_20060326. pdf Last access: October 2, 2009
• 60 Ivanitskaya L, O’Boyle I, Casey AM. Health information literacy and competencies of information age students: results from the interactive online Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA). J Med Internet Res 2006; 8: e6.
• 61 VISION 2016: A Blueprint for quality education in health information management. Chicago, Il: American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA); 2007. http://www.ahima.orgemerging_issues/Vision2016BlueprintforEduc.pdf. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 62 Health informatics professional core competencies. Toronto, Ontario: Canadian Health Informatics Association (COACH); 2007 https://secure.coachorg.com/opendoc.asp?docID=1062 Last access: August 29, 2009
• 63 Health information science knowledge and skills. Chicago, IL: Medical Library Association; 2007. http://www.mlanet.org/education/platform/skills.html. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 64 Pigott K, de Lusignan S, Rapley A, Robinson J, Pritchard-Copley A. An informatics benchmarking statement. Methods Inf Med 2007; 46: 394-398.
• 65 Huang Q. Competencies for graduate curricula in health, medical and biomedical informatics: a framework. Health Informatics Journal 2007; 13: 89-103.
• 66 Joint Workforce Task Force.. Health information management and informatics core competencies for individuals working with electronic health records. Chicago, IL, and Bethesda, MD: American Health Information Management Association and American Medical Informatics Association; 2008. http://www.ahima.org/infocenter/whitepapersworkforce_2008.pdf. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 67 Gassert C. Technology and informatics competencies. Nursing Clinics of North America 2008; 43: 507-521.
• 68 Karras BT, Davies J, Koo D. Working Group on Competencies for Public Health Informatics Competencies. Competencies for public health informaticians, Public Health Informatics Competencies. 2007, Seattle, WA: Center for Public Health Informatics; 2008. cphi.washington.edu/competencies. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 69 Gardner RM, Overhage JM, Steen EB, Munger BS, Holmes JH, Williamson JJ. et al.; AMIA Board of Directors. Core content for the subspecialty of clinical informatics. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2009; 16: 153-157.
• 70 Hersh W. AMIA-OHSU 10 ×10 Program – Logistics, Accessing Demo, Detailed Curriculum, Learning Objectives, and Additional Information. Portland, OR: Oregon Health & Science University; 2009. http://www.billhersh.info/10x10.html. Last access: November 25, 2009
• 71 Gugerty B, Delaney C. TIGER Informatics Competencies Collaborative (TICC) Final Report, Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform (TIGER) Initiative, 2009. tigercompetencies.pbworks.com/f/TICC_Final.pdf. Last access: November 25, 2009
• 72 HIT Workforce Competencies by Role. Washington, DC: Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT; 2009. healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=888534&parentname=CommunityPage&parentid=15&mode=2&in_hi_userid=11113&cached=true. Last access: November 25, 2009
• 73 http://www.hiww.org. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 74 http://www.amia.org/informatics/acad%2526training/index.asp Last access: August 29, 2009
• 75 http://www.amia.org/informatics/acad%2526training/international.asp. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 76 http://www.imia.org. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 77 The IMIA strategic plan: towards IMIA 2015.. http://www.imia.org/images/IMIA_Strategic_Plan.pdf. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 78 Lorenzi NM. Towards IMIA 2015 – the IMIA strategic plan. Yearb Med Inform. 2007 pp 1-5.
• 79 Murray P. et al. Let a thousand flowers bloom: transition towards implementation of the IMIA strategic plan. Methods Inf Med 2007; 46: 625-628.
• 80 Murray PJ. The IMIA strategic plan – towards IMIA 2015. Yearb Med Inform. 2008 pp 7-15.
• 81 Minutes of the IMIA General Assembly, August 2007, Brisbane, Australia. Report of the Vice-President for Working Groups.
• 82 Knaup P, Dickhaus H. Perspectives of medical informatics: advancing health care requires interdisciplinarity and interoperability. Methods Inf Med 2009; 48: 1-3.
• 83 Kulikowski CA. The micro-macro spectrum of medical informatics challenges: from molecular medicine to transforming health care in a globalizing society. Methods Inf Med 2002; 41: 20-24.
• 84 van Bemmel JH. Medical informatics is interdisciplinary avant la lettre. Methods Inf Med 2008; 47: 318-321.
• 85 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System. http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc48_en.htm. Last access: August 29, 2009
• 86 Hasman A, Boshuizen HP. Medical informatics and problem-based learning. Methods Inf Med 2001; 40: 78-82.
• 87 Moniteur Belge du 13 12 2001: Arrêté Ministériel du 15 octobre 2001 fixant les critères d’agrément des médecins spécialistes en gestion de données de santé N 2001-3555;. C-2001/22760; pp 43044-43046.
• 88 Roberts J. Developing the Health Informatics Professional. In: Hayes G, Barnett D. editors. UK Health Computing: Recollections and reflections. BCS; May 2008
• 89 UK Council for Health Informatics Professions, http://www.ukchip.org. Last access: November 25, 2009
• 90 Wright G. et al. IMIA knowledge base. Report submitted to IMIA, June 2008