Health Informatics and E-health Curriculum for Clinical Health Profession Degrees

This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License.The project reported in this paper models a new approach to making health informatics and e-health education widely available to students in a range of Australian clinical health profession degrees. The development of a Masters level subject uses design-based research to apply educational quality assurance practices which are consistent with university qualification frameworks, and with clinical health profession education standards; at the same time it gives recognition to health informatics as a specialised profession in its own right. The paper presents details of (a) design with reference to the Australian Qualifications Framework and CHIA competencies, (b) peer review within a three-university teaching team, (c) external review by experts from the professions, (d) cross-institutional interprofessional online learning, (e) methods for evaluating student learning experiences and outcomes, and (f) mechanisms for making the curriculum openly available to interested parties. The project has sought and found demand among clinical health professionals for formal health informatics and e-health education that is designed for them. It has helped the educators and organisations involved to understand the need for nuanced and complementary health informatics educational offerings in Australian universities. These insights may aid in further efforts to address substantive and systemic challenges that clinical informatics faces in Australia

The CrowdHEALTH project and the Hollistic Health Records: Collective Wisdom Driving Public Health Policies.

Introduction: With the expansion of available Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services, a plethora of data sources provide structured and unstructured data used to detect certain health conditions or indicators of disease. Data is spread across various settings, stored and managed in different systems. Due to the lack of technology interoperability and the large amounts of health-related data, data exploitation has not reached its full potential yet. Aim: The aim of the CrowdHEALTH approach, is to introduce a new paradigm of Holistic Health Records (HHRs) that include all health determinants defining health status by using big data management mechanisms. Methods: HHRs are transformed into HHRs clusters capturing the clinical, social and human context with the aim to benefit from the collective knowledge. The presented approach integrates big data technologies, providing Data as a Service (DaaS) to healthcare professionals and policy makers towards a "health in all policies" approach. A toolkit, on top of the DaaS, providing mechanisms for causal and risk analysis, and for the compilation of predictions is developed. Results: CrowdHEALTH platform is based on three main pillars: Data & structures, Health analytics, and Policies. Conclusions: A holistic approach for capturing all health determinants in the proposed HHRs, while creating clusters of them to exploit collective knowledge with the aim of the provision of insight for different population segments according to different factors (e.g. location, occupation, medication status, emerging risks, etc) was presented. The aforementioned approach is under evaluation through different scenarios with heterogeneous data from multiple sources

Building comprehensive and sustainable health informatics institutions in developing countries: Moi University experience

Current approaches for capacity building in Health Informatics (HI) in developing countries mostly focus on training, and often rely on support from foreign entities. In this paper, we describe a comprehensive and multidimensional capacity-building framework by Lansang & Dennis, and its application for HI capacity building as implemented in a higher-education institution in Kenya. This framework incorporates training, learning-by-doing, partnerships, and centers of excellence. At Moi University (Kenya), the training dimensions include an accredited Masters in HI Program, PhD in HI, and HI short courses. Learning-by-doing occurs through work within MOH facilities at the AMPATH care and treatment program serving 3 million people. Moi University has formed strategic HI partnerships with Regenstrief Institute, Inc. (USA), University of Bergen (Norway), and Makerere University (Uganda), among others. The University has also created an Institute of Biomedical Informatics to serve as an HI Center of Excellence in the region. This Institute has divisions in Training, Research, Service and Administration. The HI capacity-building approach by Moi provides a model for adoption by other institutions in resource-limited settings

Educating Health Care Professionals Master's Program in Health Informatics at Aalborg University

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Sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon tiedonhallinnan tutkimuskohteet Itä-Suomen yliopistossa – paradigman todentuminen tietohallinnon maisteri- ja tohtorikoulutuksessa

The recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on education in biomedical and health informatics have been used as the basis for the master’s in health and human services informatics program at the University of Eastern Finland. Accredited in 2012 and 2018 by IMIA, the program responds to current challenges by focusing on informatics knowledge and skills among citizens and professionals, along with knowledge management and research and development of information management and systems as described in Finnish eHealth strategies. The purpose of this paper was to describe research focused on defining the health and human services informatics paradigm adopted in health and human services informatics programs. The aim was to describe the distribution in the research areas covered in master’s and doctoral theses and to use that information in the development of courses and theses guidance. The research data consisted of master’s theses (N=158) from the years 2002–2018 and doctoral theses (N=14) from the years 2011–2018. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to show distribution with frequenses and percentages. The master’s theses focused mostly on the steering and organizing of information management in work processes (n=55) such as modelling or assessing processes and the use of information and communication technology (n=48) such as assessing information systems’ implementations or digital services. The doctoral theses focused mostly on the steering and organizing of information management in work processes (n=5) and data models and structures (n=5) such as describing data elements or terminology usage. By percentages, both master’s and doctoral theses highlighted research on steering and organizing of information management in work processes (36% and 35%, respectively) and knowledge management and informatics competencies (21% and 22%, respectively). The study findings are connected to the visions of national eHealth and eSocial strategies to support citizens’ well-being and service renewal. In the future, both master’s and doctoral theses should also be directed to knowledge management and informatics competencies among citizens and professionals.Itä-Suomen yliopiston Sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon tietohallinnon maisterikoulutusohjelman opetus perustuu Kansainvälisen lääketieteellisen tietotekniikan ja tiedonhallinnan yhdistyksen IMIA:n (International Medical Informatics Association) koulutussuosituksiin. Koulutusohjelma on akkreditoitu vuosina 2012 ja 2018, ja se vastaa kansallisten strategioiden esittämiin haasteisiin, jotka liittyvät muun muassa kansalaisen ja ammattilaisen tiedonhallinnan osaamiseen, tiedolla johtamiseen sekä tiedonhallinnan ja tietojärjestelmien tutkimiseen. Tämän artikkelin tarkoituksena on kuvata sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon tietohallinnon koulutusohjelmasta valmistuneiden pro gradu -tutkielmien ja väitöskirjojen keskeisiä tutkimuskohteita sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon tiedonhallinnan paradigman viitekehyksessä vuosina 2002–2018. Tavoitteena on kuvata paradigman tutkimuskohteiden jakautumista, jota tietoa voidaan hyödyntää sekä oppiaineen opintojaksojen kehittämisessä että tulevien opinnäytteiden ohjauksessa. Tutkimusaineisto koostui maisteriohjelmasta valmistuneista pro gradu-tutkielmista (N=158) vuosilta 2002–2018 sekä väitöskirjoista (N=14) vuosilta 2011–2018. Aineisto analysoitiin kuvailevin tilastollisin menetelmin kuvaamalla aineiston jakautumista frekvenssein ja prosenttiosuuksin. Koulutusohjelmasta valmistuneet pro gradu -tutkielmat kohdistuivat pääasiassa toimintaprosessien tiedon hallinnan organisointiin ja ohjaukseen (n=55) kuten prosessien mallinnukseen tai arviointiin sekä tieto- ja viestintätekniikan käyttöön (n=48) kuten käyttöönottojen arviointiin tai sähköiseen asiointiin. Vastaavasti väitöskirjat (N=14) kohdistuivat erityisesti toimintaprosessien tiedon hallinnan organisointiin ja ohjaukseen (n=5) sekä tietorakenteisiin ja -malleihin (n=5) kuten tietosisältöjen määrittämiseen tai terminologian käyttöön. Prosenttiosuuksina tarkasteltaessa molemmissa opinnäytetöissä korostui toimintaprosessien tiedon hallinnan organisointi ja ohjaus (36 % ja 35 %) sekä tiedonhallinnan osaaminen ja tiedolla johtaminen (21 % ja 22 %). Tulokset linkittyvät kansallisen Sote-tieto hyötykäyttöön -strategian visioihin ja tuottavat tarpeellista tutkimusta tiedonhallinnasta. Jatkossa opinnäytteitä tulee kohdistaa enemmän myös tiedonhallinnan osaamisen tutkimiseen

IMIA Accreditation of Health Informatics Programs

Health informatics programs usually are evaluated by national accreditation committees. Not always are the members of these committees well informed about the international level of (education in) health informatics. Therefore, when a program is accredited by a national accreditation committee, this does not always mean that the program is of an international level. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has expertise in the field of education. The IMIA Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics guide curricula development. The goal of this article is to show that IMIA can also play the role of accreditation agency and to present the IMIA accreditation protocol and experiences obtained with it. The accreditation procedure used in the Netherlands and Belgium was taken as a template for the design of the IMIA accreditation protocol. In a trial period of one and a half year the protocol is tested out on six health informatics programs. An accreditation protocol was designed. For judging the curriculum of a program the IMIA Recommendations are used. The institution has to write a self-assessment report and a site visit committee visits the program and judges its quality, supported by the self-assessment report and discussions with all stakeholders of the program. After having visited three programs it appears that the IMIA accreditation procedure works well. Only a few changes had to be introduced. Writing the self-assessment report already appears to be beneficial for the management of the program to obtain a better insight in the quality of their progra

Front-Line Physicians' Satisfaction with Information Systems in Hospitals

Day-to-day operations management in hospital units is difficult due to continuously varying situations, several actors involved and a vast number of information systems in use. The aim of this study was to describe front-line physicians' satisfaction with existing information systems needed to support the day-to-day operations management in hospitals. A cross-sectional survey was used and data chosen with stratified random sampling were collected in nine hospitals. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The response rate was 65 % (n = 111). The physicians reported that information systems support their decision making to some extent, but they do not improve access to information nor are they tailored for physicians. The respondents also reported that they need to use several information systems to support decision making and that they would prefer one information system to access important information. Improved information access would better support physicians' decision making and has the potential to improve the quality of decisions and speed up the decision making process.Peer reviewe