COACH: Canada’s Health Informatics Association
Canada’s Health Informatics Association (COACH) celebrated its 40th Anniversary in 2015. COACH connects, inspires, and educates the digital health professionals creating the future of health in Canada. Our members are a diverse community of accomplished, influential professionals working to make a difference in advancing healthcare through information technology.
COACH fosters network growth and connection; brings together ideas from multiple segments for incubation and advocacy; supports members through professional development at the individual and organizational level; and advocates for the Canadian digital health industry. COACH offers a broad range of services for networking and professional development, national conferences and regional events, thought leadership and best practice sharing, and training and education services as well as specialized career resources and professional certification.
COACH Highlights – 2016–2017 fiscal year
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Membership continues to grow. For the third year in a row, COACH has surpassed the 2,000 member mark (2,201 members in 2016-17).
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Participation in CHIEF (Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum) continues to be strong with over 110 public sector and private sector leaders from across Canada.
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The Future of Digital Health and the People Who Benefit was the theme of this year’s e-Health Conference and Tradeshow, Canada’s national digital health conference, which took place in Toronto June 4–7, 2017. Conference content is available via the new e-Health Virtual Library. See “Resources” at www.coachorg.com.
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In the Spring of 2016, COACH conducted the first ever Digital Health Leadership Survey in Canada. It was circulated to more than 300 leaders in the healthcare service delivery sector across Canada. In the fall of 2016, COACH released the inaugural National Digital Health Leadership Report, which provides insights based on the survey results.
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Webinar Wednesdays were introduced in 2015–2016 as an innovative method to cover a broad range of emerging topics for members. The webinar format maximizes accessibility for members to attend sessions, without need to incur time and cost for travel. The sessions have been very well received in 2016-17, attracting more than 1,000 attendees.
New Initiatives
Several online initiatives were released in the Autumn of 2016 to inform and empower COACH members:
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Updated COACH Website – to enhance member experience, the refreshed website features features a fresh design and improved navigation. “The site refresh stems from COACH’s deep commitment to being responsive and future-focused for our members, the health informatics profession and the digital health industry in Canada,” said CEO Mark Casselman. “Innovation is a big part of the industry and this first set of updates to the website will better support members and professionals in leading practice, building professional networks, and creating content in health informatics and digital health.”
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COACH Communities of Action (COA) provide COACH members who share a common interest or passion in the health informatics (HI) field with the opportunity to learn, collaborate, network, and publish. Operating as a community of equals with Leaders, Managers, and Core Working Groups, COA participants exchange ideas and information, enhance their understanding of a particular HI subject, and seek answers to specific questions. Our volunteers collaborate towards a common goal of producing serviceable documents for COACH stakeholders within a 6-month cycle, to advance the creation and adoption of HI solutions. Examples of COA include Home and Community Care, Consumer Digital Health, HI education, and eSafety.
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Redesigned weekly member communications email - called PULSE, the new weekly email has been formatted to be easy and quick to scan for content of interest.
Upcoming COACH Conferences and Events
2017 CHIEF Spring Symposium
– Taking place June 2–3, 2017 in Toronto, this event convenes the members of Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum (CHIEF) to explore three main themes in depth: 1) Digital Health Leadership; 2) Patient Engagement; 3) Data and Analytics. This event will enable members to network, collaborate, and enhance their leadership roles in eHealth.
e-Health Conference and Tradeshow 2018 - May 27 - 30, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia
- This year, e-Health showcases the many successful products, success stories, and leaders in our nation’s digital health journey. With an impressive roster of keynote presenters (8), speakers (250+), educational sessions (160+), and exhibitors (85+), over 1,500 eHealth attendees will enjoy exceptional education and networking opportunities. The highly anticipated Canadian Health Informatics Awards (CHIA) Gala returns as well. A “Start Up Zone” is available to new companies who want to join the exhibitor floor. Visit www.e-health-conference.com for regular updates.
eHealthAchieve 2017
– scheduled for November 6–7, 2017 in Toronto, this annual eHealth forum is one of the most respected healthcare events in North America. Further details are forthcoming.
Webinar Wednesdays
are popular with our members, since they provide a way for busy health informatics professionals to keep up-to-date on emerging issues and trends. Upcoming Webinars for 2017 include:
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CIHI’s Digital Health Strategy: How Stakeholder Engagement has Driven the Evolution of CIHI’s Digital Footprint
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SPARKing a Pathway to Access Patient Health Data
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Moving Precision Medicine Forward in Canada
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Using Technology to Implement Ontario’s first Quality Standards in Mental Health
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OntarioMD Integration Update: Part of Something Bigger – EMR’s Supporting Patients, Practices and the Health System
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COACH Webinar with IBM
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Providing and Managing Publicly Funded Physiotherapy Visits via Private Clinics
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Independent Verifcation and Validation: Keeping Projects on Track in Health Organizations
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Your Home, Your Health System: CIHI’s Public Reporting Tool is Supporting Quality Improvement in Long-Term Care
Recently Completed COACH Conferences and Events
eHealth 2016
: Reimagining Healthcare Delivery – took place in Vancouver, Canada from June 5 to 8, 2016. Over 1,500 attendees included “C-level” executives, professionals in telehealth and health informatics, clinicians, data analytics leaders, and emerging professionals. Over 150 education sessions were delivered, with presenters from 6 different countries. Topics included consumer health, privacy standards, analytics, data governance, e-prescribing, telehealth, clinical satisfaction, and more. New features included spontaneous “flash” rants and Innovation Alley, which showcased start-up companies on the trade show floor. The pre-conference Sunday Symposium was very well received by delegates. It featured fascinating presentations on FHIR, interoperability, and telehealth. The third annual Hacking Health Hackathon took place as part of the conference, which brought together interprofessional teams of clinicians, designers, and Health IT experts in a competition to develop the best prototype solutions to real-world eHealth problems. The 11th annual star-studded COACH/CHIA (Canadian Health Informatics Awards) Gala also took place during the event.
eHealthAchieve 2016
took place on November 7 and 8, 2016 in Toronto. The theme was “Healthcare Innovations: Enablers, Challenges, and Gaps”. Keynote speakers included Don Tapscott and William Charnetski. Presentations included topics such as Internet of Things in Health, Cloud Computing, and Data Analytics.
Webinar Wednesdays
have provided a convenient way for busy health informatics professionals to keep up-to-date on emerging issues and trends. Topics in 2016 – 2017 have so far included:
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What Telehealth Can Do For You
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HL7 FHIR: Time to Pay Attention
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COACH Privacy and Security for EMR’s
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Jurisdictional Adoption & Implementation Experiences with the COACH eSafety Guidelines in Alberta and Ontario
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How Master Data Management Can Revolutionize Your Healthcare Data
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Virtual Care in Canada
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Research Ethics Approval
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The Digital Era of Forms Management
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Patient to Provider Data Quality
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Innovating HI with Next Generation Data Integration & Management in Preparation for Patient Care Transformation
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How Well are Digital Technologies Working for Patients? A Patient-Centred Framework for Evaluating Digital Maturity
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The Role of Pathology Informatics in Transfusion Service Optimization
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Consumer Health in Primary Healthcare
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Collaborating with Care Providers and Patients to Develop a COPD Protocol for Home Health Monitoring
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Don’t be a Data Breach Headline in 2017
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Our Journey to a Single Health Record with Fraser Health
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Modernizing Canada’s Hospital Data Supply to Reduce the Data Burden & Improve Timeliness & Access
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West Park Healthcare Centre Journey in an HIS Cluster
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How to Address Canadian Physician Concerns Around Safety and Privacy
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How to get the Most out of COACH Membership
COACH/ANHIX 2017 Conference – Alberta’s Clinical Information System:
The New Frontier took place on Feb 8, 2017 in Calgary, Alberta. It featured public and private sector leaders sharing their vision for the provincial Clinical Information System. Over 130 attendees discussed Integrated Health Records, Precision Medicine, and Digital Health Leadership.
UPONDIGITAL: The Ontario Update on Digital Health 2017
took place in Toronto, Ontario on March 6, 2017. Public sector leaders from across the province presented perspectives and engaged their peers from public and private sector in discussion related to the challenges and opportunities of innovation in Ontario: Are we strengthening our healthcare system? Are innovations creating value? What more needs to be done to the Digital Health Innovation Ecosystem (DHIE) to produce better outcomes and improve patient experience?
Ahead of the Curve: Patient Engagement & Connected Care
took place in Vancouver, British Columbia on March 27, 2017. It featured thought leaders sharing their insights on the shift towards new models of care delivery, enhanced connectivity between Canadians and their healthcare providers, and the rapid introduction and availability of innovative technologies across Canada. This networking breakfast event featured engaging discussion about the people, processes, and technologies enabling the next generation of patient engagement and connected care.
Progressive Partnerships: Digital Health Collaboration and Innovation - Thursday, May 11, Algonquin College, Ottawa Ontari
o - Successful collaboration between public and private sector digital health teams was the topic of this breakfast workshop session in Canada’s national capital area.
New and Updated Publications
The following COACH publications were released or updated in 2016–2017:
NEW: 2016 National Digital Health Leadership Report: A Current State Snapshot was released in November 2016. “COACH went directly to digital health leaders for their experiences and insights about how digital health innovation is impacting care and the health system,” said COACH CEO Mark Casselman. “Our report brings forward a valuable snapshot of what is happening now across Canada, and will help inform a roadmap for health system transformation going forward.” Features: 1) gain crucial insights into career growth areas; 2) understand management priorities; 3) see what the innovators are implementing.
UPDATED: Putting It Into Practice – Privacy and Security for Healthcare Providers Implementing Electronic Medical Records Special Edition V3. With electronic medical records (EMRs) now part of mainstream of medical practice across Canada, having a guide that explains privacy and security best practices in Canada in concise, easy-to-understand terminology is even more important in protecting valuable personal health information. COACH’s new edition of this guide contains refreshed content, including an extensively updated section on legislation and regulation.
“Across the country, we have seen jurisdictions working diligently over the three years since the previous edition was published, so that laws better reflect and support the clinical reality of digital technology when it comes to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of personal health information and healthcare delivery overall,” said Geoffrey Pille, Chair of the COACH Privacy and Security Expert Working Group, which led the update. “The new edition includes important information along with links to key resources reflecting the latest in jurisdictional regulation.”
Putting It into Practice is designed to support community providers in making better, more informed decisions about implementing privacy and security best practices in an office setting when using electronic record systems as they collect, use, access, share, and store personal health information. Written for practitioners, it is intended to enhance awareness and assist providers with the often complex decision-making around the selection, implementation, maintenance, and support of an electronic record system. The importance of jurisdictional-specific conformance standards, agreements, and privacy policies is also outlined.
Putting It into Practice can be purchased from the COACH Store as an eBook PDF, including bookmarking, hyperlinks, and hover definitions, or hard-copy book (print on-demand).
Standards
COACH is an active participant through its leaders and members in the development and implementation of international standards for health information as the key to electronic health record (EHR) initiatives in Canada and worldwide. COACH also contributes to international standards development through members’ involvement with the ISO Technical Committee on Health Informatics (TC 215), HL7 and SNOMED International.
COACH’s 2014 – 2017 Strategy
The COACH 2014- 2017 Strategic Plan is the culmination of a comprehensive process featuring strong membership engagement through surveys and focus groups, Board-led assessments of all COACH’s primary programs and services, input from COACH’s eHealth and CEO Advisory Council, an internal program assessment and metrics report developed by our staff, facilitated Board workshop and review sessions and strategy development.
As a foundation to the COACH Association and to demonstrate Canadian leadership in the area of Health Informatics, COACH uses the following definition of Health Informatics: The intersection of clinical, IM/IT and management practices to achieve better health.
The COACH mission is to connect, inspire and educate the digital health professionals creating the future of health in Canada. COACH’s values are:
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Demonstrate leadership by introducing innovation that accelerates the transformation of health service delivery
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Value collaboration through sharing of health informatics and digital health-knowledge and experience with others
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Recognize the diversity of our membership
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Remain committed to continuous learning
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Be guided by professionalism, integrity and ethics
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Respond to and serves the needs of the members and the health system
The COACH 2014–2017 Strategy is comprised of five main strategic goals and objectives:
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Enhance Membership Value Through Network Growth and Connections -COACH will deliver high membership value through a large, integrated professional network that includes traditional sectors, new segments, and innovative service offerings.
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Connect Communities (Digital and Physical) - COACH will deepen existing and build new relationships with partners to improve access to information, enhance value exchange, and develop regional infrastructure to support member activity.
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Empower Professional Development And Advocacy - COACH will support members through professional development at the individual and organizational level and advocate for the Canadian digital health industry.
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Implement Digital Business Platform - COACH will operate effectively and efficiently with technology enabled services to engage and support membership needs seamlessly.
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Build Brand Awareness and Brand Value - COACH brand is recognized, valued, and respected within the digital health industry.
Programs and Services
2016–2017 services and programs include:
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COACH membership opportunities
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COACH offers Corporate, Start-up, Academic, and Individual Memberships
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Position postings are available to all members and also non-member organizations looking to fill job postings.
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Volunteer opportunities exist all across the Association and COACH engages with over 240 volunteers annually.
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CHIEF (Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum) provides an effective access channel to thought leaders and expert-level knowledge, both nationally and internationally, and advances career development for Canadian Health Informatics Leaders
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National eHealth Conference and Regional Events
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Canada’s National eHealth Conference and Tradeshow (co-hosted by COACH, Canada Health Infoway, and Canadian Institute for Health Information)
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Symposiums with COACH and partner provincial jurisdiction HI organizations
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Alberta Network for Health Information Exchange (ANHIX) Symposium
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Ontario UpOnDigital Conference
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Ontario Hospital Association Health Achieve
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Education and Training
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Thought Leadership and Practice Tools
For more information
COACH: Canada’s Health Informatics
Association
11th Floor, 151 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario M5C 2W7
Canada
coachorg.com
Visit COACH on LlinkedIn, Twitter and
Facebook.
Biomedical and Health Informatics Activities in the United States
AMIA – Informatics Professionals. Leading the Way
AMIA represents more than 5,400 healthcare professionals, students, informatics researchers, practitioners, and thought-leaders in biomedicine, healthcare, and science. AMIA’s members are subject matter experts in the science and practice of informatics as it relates to clinical care, research, education, and policy. They address challenges across the continuum of the health ecosystem—consumers and patients, healthcare providers and care delivery systems, population and public health, and basic and clinical research with the ultimate goal to advance better health, better healthcare, and improved efficiency through the use of informatics and information technology.
2015–2020 Strategic Plan: Working Together to Transform Health and Healthcare
In 2015, AMIA introduced a new strategic plan to guide the organization and its members into the next era of informatics. The strategic plan focuses on three core directives; the issues that matter most to members and leadership—advancing professional growth for our members, creating impact in health and healthcare, and enhancing leadership for the profession.
In 2016 and 2017, AMIA is focusing on a communications plan to raise awareness that informatics and informaticians are the key to transforming health and healthcare outcomes. We are changing the way we talk about ourselves, our members, and the field of informatics. We are going to be telling stories about why our members do what they do.
At the AMIA 2016 Annual Symposium, we launched the #WhyInformatics campaign. The campaign is designed to inform policymakers, the media, and organizations in the healthcare space that millions of people benefit from informaticians’ ability to accelerate healthcare’s transformation. We do this by collecting, analyzing, and applying data directly to care decisions.
We invite our international colleagues at IMIA to get involved. We know that a conversation about informatics can be difficult for people who do not have a deep understanding of how we collect, analyze, and use health information. It often requires understanding different disciplines and the intersection of those disciplines. Too often, we lose audiences outside of our field because we forget to frame the conversation in a way that helps them understand informatics. We talk about what we do and forget to say why we do it.
By flipping our conversations and focusing on the “why,” we can begin to share our passion for improving health and health care—something that touches everyone.
Advancing Professional Growth for Our Members
AMIA enhances our members’ abilities to lead, transform, and improve care through excellence in the practice of informatics, basic and applied informatics research, and education and training of informatics professionals. Some of these program highlights include AMIA events and publications.
Joint Summits on Translational Science
AMIA’s Joint Summits on Translational Science continue to represent the best opportunities for networking with others in the translational bioinformatics (TBI) and clinical research informatics (CRI) communities. San Francisco in springtime continues to the West coast home for the Summits.
The 2017 TBI summit discussed timely challenges of managing clinical and research data, as well as the growing complexity and size of the data. Summit attendees discussed the need for investment in informatics personnel, computational hardware and software across academia, government, and industry. The CRI summit included discussion about the same issues adding in healthcare consumer involvement and public health concerns. It also featured sessions on new informatics theories, tools, and solutions that are needed to accelerate our knowledge discovery, translation, application, and implementation of solutions.
2017 was the second year of a new feature at the Summits focused on informatics implementation. These engaging sessions provided a forum for the presentation of information and ideas, from best-of-breed software teams geared specifically to support existing or new CRI/TBI/EDM implementation experts. Content for the four-day event included invited talks and panel discussions from leaders in the field as well as opportunities for networking between new and established implementers.
The HL7-AMIA Datathon was offered as a preconference activity this year and provided an introduction to the use of HL7® FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) to access clinical data to support informatics research activities and allow participants to evaluate how FHIR can support research. The hands-on workshop offered participants the opportunity to work directly with other colleagues in attendance at the Summits as well as senior members of the FHIR standards development team.
Led by Jason Moore, Peggy Peissig, and Bernie LaSalle the program offered exciting and informative panels and attracted over 600 individuals. Keynotes include Neil M. Richards, Washington University, who spoke on privacy, information law, and freedom of expression; and the return of two favorites, Russ Altman, Stanford University, presented the Translational Bioinformatics Year-in-Review and Peter Embi, Regenstrief Institute, presented the Clinical Research Informatics Year-in-Review. The implementation track keynote panel featured Bernard LaSalle, University of Utah Health Science Center and Leslie McIntosh, Washington University in St. Louis.
To see more about the Summits, visit www.amia.org/jointsummits2017
iHealth Clinical Informatics Conference
In May, AMIA hosted the fourth iHealth conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. iHealth convenes clinicians, informatics professionals, and other interested parties, who share and learn about improving team-based, integrated health care driven by data, and evidence to impact outcomes for patients, families, and communities.
In 2017, the event covered a spectrum of issues including developing and incorporating patient engagement strategies, analyzing population health data, and using innovative mHealth solutions. iHealth continues to provide a forum that focuses broadly on how applied clinical informatics contributes to improvements in health and health care.
Co-chairs Victoria Tiase and David Liebovitz focused this year’s conference on the objectives of applying evidence- or experience- based models to improve informatics practice. They also planned sessions to connect current U.S. health policy ideas and laws to potential disruptions of health care. iHealth attendees welcomed David B. Nash, Jefferson Collect of Population Health, as the opening keynote.
To see more about iHealth, visit www. amia.org/ihealth2017
InSpire: Developing the Health Informatics Workforce of the Future Conference
The second InSpire conference was held in June in La Jolla, California. The conference was developed from the 10-year experience with the Academic Forum Annual Conference and is designed to link the work of educators and the needs of employers. Content will cover state-of-the-art approaches and best practices in education, research, and training; and building, supporting, and strengthening the academic informatics community. Fostering innovative approaches in informatics education to advance the health informatics workforce of the future is the goal of the meeting. The conference is intended for faculty and program staff and multidisciplinary informatics professionals at all levels.
Karen Monsen led a diverse program committee of informatics leaders to connect academia and industry to advance the informatics workforce. A major goal of the meeting is to bring together the educators who produce informatics graduates with the industry and employers who want to shape and hire highly skilled and highly qualified informaticians.
To see more about InSpire, visit www. amia.org/inspire2017
Annual Symposium
AMIA hosts the foremost symposium for the science and practice of biomedical informatics in the U.S. The 2016 Scientific Program Committee, led by Wanda Pratt, worked diligently to create compelling content, but the heart of the meeting is found in the connections and interactions of members and attendees. More than 2,300 members, registrants, and exhibitors experienced AMIA 2016. This year the AMIA Twitter community included 1,515 participants generating more than 10,000 #AMIA2016 tweets and more than 22 million impressions.
Last year’s meeting featured full-length papers, abstract presentations, posters and panel discussions including didactic and interactive panels with extensive audience participation, cutting-edge policy presentations, keynotes, tutorials, system demonstrations, and pre-symposium workshops.
A new Board of Directors Task Force, Women in AMIA, made an impact on AMIA 2016 with the introduction of the Career Development for Women in AMIA special event. More than 35 women volunteered as career development guides. They were teamed up with more than 90 women to provide one-on-one career guidance for early and mid-career women in informatics. The task force’s work was also behind the introduction of childcare services during the symposium. The group includes subcommittees to address issues related to leadership, career advancement, networking, and mentoring.
AMIA 2016 featured the “Why Informatics?” story series where attendees submitted videos at the video booth describing their passion for informatics. The content of the symposium featured keynote addresses by Jessica Richman talking about the microbiome, Patricia Flatley Brennan speaking about new directions for the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and Eric Horvitz speaking about his career in informatics leading the Microsoft Research Lab. The symposium also provided a venue for the rising generation of informaticians with opportunities such as the continuation of the high school scholars program, student paper competition, and student design challenge.
Mark your calendar for the 2017 Annual Symposium, November 4–8 in Washington, D.C. We hope you will join us! www.amia. org/amia2017
JAMIA
JAMIA continues to provide members and subscribers with the best in biomedical and health informatics publishing as the premier journal in the field. Lucila Ohno-Machado and the JAMIA Editorial Board published a special issue on outcomes data to improve and develop new predictive models and corresponding decision support systems. The journal also featured sections focused on enhancing patient engagement, research on person-generated health and wellness data, and precision medicine.
A highlight of the 2016 volume year was the article, “Impact of commercial computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) on medication errors, length of stay, and mortality in intensive care units: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Read it today at https://academic.oup.com/jamia/ article-lookup/doi/10.1093/jamia/ocw145.
JAMIA also published an article about the impact of informatics on social media that was shared widely in June entitled “Translating evidence to practice in the health professions: a randomized trial of Twitter vs Facebook.” The article is also freely available as an editor’s choice on the JAMIA website at https://academic.oup. com/jamia/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/ jamia/ocw085.
Applied Clinical Informatics
AMIA members continue to receive the journal Applied Clinical Informatics as part of their membership. As the official eJournal of AMIA and IMIA, ACI publishes approximately 100 peer-reviewed articles per year. It aims to establish a platform that allows sharing knowledge between clinical medicine and health IT specialists as well as bridging gaps between visionary design and successful and pragmatic deployment.
In 2016, ACI published several open access articles that circulated through the informatics community and included one on cholesterol management and CDS https://aci.schattauer.de/contents/archive/ issue/2440/issue/special/manuscript/27136/ show.html and the other on clinical information literacy https://aci.schattauer.de/ contents/archive/issue/2440/issue/special/ manuscript/27178/show.html. A highlight in 2016 was an AMIA Board of Directors commissioned paper on
The Chief Clinical Informatics Officer (CCIO) which is freely available at https://aci. schattauer.de/en/contents/archive/issue/2299/ issue/special/manuscript/25654/show.html
Creating Impact in Health and Healthcare
AMIA continues to develop its brand of evidence-based public policy in Washington, D.C. Notably, AMIA published policy principles and positions further defining the emerging domain of health informatics policy. Not unlike environmental policy, security policy, or welfare policy, health informatics policy is a distinct policy domain that seeks to optimize care delivery and care experience, improve population and public health, and advance discovery through the collection, analysis, and application of data.
AMIA published the first of several pillars of health informatics policy in 2016, including health IT safety, data sharing in research, workforce, education, and patient empowerment. 2017 will include additional areas focused on health IT standards, informatics-driven quality measurement, and public health. AMIA will use these policy principles and positions to articulate to its members, policymakers, and other stakeholders those issues and conversations we consider most import.
AMIA also established more than twenty ad hoc response teams, leveraging the expertise of more than 150 AMIA members, to help the federal government develop policy across a range of issues spanning clinical care, research, and public health. These recommendations were vital in helping the federal government establish a new payment system for U.S. providers, update rules on confidentiality protections, and establish health informatics professionals as a unique occupation in government employment data.
Finally, AMIA was named among the Food and Drug Administration’s Network of Experts – a vetted network of partner organizations and their member scientists, clinicians, and engineers who can provide FDA staff with rapid access to expertise. AMIA stands alone in this honor among similar associations and it will enable AMIA to improve the FDA’s understanding of informatics.
The 10th Annual AMIA Policy Invitational drew 80+ thought leaders to address Completing the Evidence Cycle: Reimagining the Research-Practice Relationship in a Post-Meaningful-Use World. The meeting was chaired by Peter Embi, Regenstrief Institute and hosted three high-profile speakers Robert M. Califf, Food and Drug Administration; Patricia Flatley Brennan, National Library of Medicine; and Andrew B. Bindman, Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality.
Enhancing Leadership for the Profession
AMIA will strengthen our informatics leadership, membership, and our financial future, promoting our identity while preserving the value of AMIA. Some of these program highlights include AMIA education, certification, and community networking.
Workforce Development
In the past 10 years, we have seen a change in health informatics from an area of scientific inquiry and study, to a profession in which people apply scientific insights to real-world problems. This is reflected in the composition of the AMIA membership and in the diversity of masters and bachelor’s level programs in health informatics. What once has been a highly educated academic discipline driven by research questions, now accommodates individuals who have differing levels of education and careers are not predicated on an academic tenure process.
Informaticians come from diverse clinical and technical backgrounds with one unifying vision: to use health informatics to improve health and health care. Maintaining the quality and integrity of the science and the field, and meeting the diversity of educational offerings, professional careers, and AMIA programs will require a range of different accreditation, certification, and organizational recognition.
In a presentation at AMIA 2016 Annual Symposium, AMIA President and CEO Doug Fridsma described the current ways AMIA is working to address current gaps in accreditation, certification, and recognition programs to provide a full suite of programs to support education and profes-sionalization.
The goal of these efforts will be to support individuals at all levels of professional development and articulate a career pathway that allows every individual to achieve their professional potential in support of the demand for a skilled workforce of informaticians.
10×10 Programs
AMIA believes that strengthening the breadth and depth of the biomedical and health informatics workforce is a critical component in the transformation of the healthcare system. AMIA is committed to the education and training of a new generation of clinical, public health, research, and translational bioinformatics informaticians. AMIA’s 10×10 utilizes curricular content from existing informatics training programs and other AMIA educational initiatives with a special emphasis toward those programs with a proven record of accomplishment in distance learning. The content provides a framework, but also covers plenty of detail, especially in areas such as electronic and personal health records, health information exchange, standards, terminology, and health care quality and error prevention.
AMIA also offers an internationally-focused variation of the successful 10×10 program called i10×10. Courses qualifying for the i10×10 program should be endorsed by a local or regional IMIA member society. Global partners interested in offering courses and learning more about i10×10 should contact AMIA (no application fee is required for submission of a proposal).
New course partners joined the 10×10 program including Duke Center for Health Informatics at Duke University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
To see more about 10×10, visit www. amia.org/education/10×10-courses
Membership Communities
With more than 5,400 members, communication and collaboration among AMIA members is key to advancing the goals of the organization and its membership and to improving the profession itself. AMIA supports networks that serve as channels through which current members can exchange information on specific areas of biomedical and health informatics with colleagues and become involved in the development of positions, white papers, programs, we-binars, pre-symposia, and other activities that benefit the informatics community. These communities take shape in the form of Discussion Forums and Working Groups. Each group produces work product and facilitates an online community that fosters engagement among members, as well as collaboratively across groups.
Within AMIA, there are three other significant communities—the Academic Forum, the Industry Advisory Council, and the American College of Medical Informatics.
The Academic Forum exists to serve the needs of post baccalaureate biomedical and health informatics training programs. It offers a place for academic leaders and faculty from nearly 70 programs to discuss national research initiatives in informatics and its roundtable addresses objectives for education and research by facilitating collaboration across academic units. Participants focus on a range of issues important to faculty such as management, promotion criteria, recruitment, models of success in building informatics programs, salary scales, and advocacy within academic environments. Forum members plan their annual meetings and participate in task forces that address important educational and certification/ accreditation issues that are related to the clinical informatics developments.
The Industry Advisory Council (IAC) plays a unique and powerful role in healthcare, academia, and product research and development. As the primary convener of some of the most influential informatics meetings in the healthcare industry, our corporate members engage directly with established and emerging leaders in informatics. Through the Industry Advisory Council, corporate members serve as counsel to and as an influential feedback channel for board-initiated collaborations and investigations. Active participants in the IAC have played a vital role in advancing public policy while deepening their reach in the informatics community.
The American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) is a college of elected fellows from the U.S. and abroad who have made significant and sustained contributions to the field of biomedical and health informatics. It is the center of action for a community of scholars and practitioners who are committed to advancing the informatics field. The College exists as an elected body of fellows exceeding 400 individuals.
In 2016, ACMI selected Dr. David W. Bates as the recipient of the 2016 Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence. Dr. Bates is Chief, Division of General Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as well as Medical Director, Clinical and Quality Analysis at Partners HealthCare System, Inc.
For more information
AMIA
4720 Montgomery Lane, Suite 500
Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
Tel: +1 301 657 1291
Fax: +1 301 657 1296
E-mail: mail@amia.org
Website: www.amia.org
Twitter: @AMIAinformatics
LinkedIn: Official Group of AMIA
Facebook: American Medical Informatics Association
