Biomedical and health informatics education at UMIT—approaches and strategies at a newly founded university

Abstract

Based on the recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA, http://www.IMIA.org) on education in health and medical informatics and on experiences in founding a new school, the University for Health Informatics and Technology Tyrol (UMIT, http://www.UMIT.at), at Innsbruck, Austria, questions on education in health informatics, medical informatics, and biomedical informatics are discussed. Suggestions are made on (1) appropriate approaches for specialized educational programs in biomedical and health informatics at the university level, on (2) resources and infrastructures needed for running such programs at a high-quality level, and on (3) strategies to be considered for the future development of such educational programs. UMIT strives for an international top position in education and research. It entirely concentrates on areas in research and education in biomedicine and the health sciences. UMIT started in the academic year 2001/2002 with two educational programs. They lead to a B.Sc. degree (3 years) and a M.Sc. degree (1.5–2 years) in medical informatics. In parallel Ph.D. students work in research projects.