Abstract
The growing complexity of healthcare systems worldwide and the medical profession’s increasing dependency on information technology for accurate practice and treatment call for specific standardized education in health informatics programming, and accreditation of health informatics programs based on core competencies is progressing at an international level. This study investigates the state of affairs in health informatics programs within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to determine (1) how well international standards are being met and (2) what further development is needed in light of KSA’s recent eHealth initiatives. This descriptive study collected data from publicly available resources to investigate Health Informatics programs at 109 Saudi institutions. Information about coursework offered at each institution was compared with American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) curriculum guidelines. Of 109 institutions surveyed, only a handful offered programs specifically in health informatics. Of these, most programs did not match the coursework recommended by AMIA, and the majority of programs mimicked existing curricula from other countries rather than addressing unique Saudi conditions. Education in health informatics in KSA appears to be scattered, non-standardized, and somewhat outdated. Based on these findings, there is a clear opportunity for greater focus on core competencies within health informatics programs. The Saudi digital transformation (eHealth) initiative, as part of Saudi Vision 2030, clearly calls for implementation of internationally accepted health informatics competencies in education programs and healthcare practice, which can only occur through greater collaboration between medical and technology educators and strategic partnerships with companies, medical centers, and governmental institutions.
Highlights
The professions of healthcare cover a vast and growing number of fields, many of which are ever evolving and increasingly interdisciplinary
In an attempt to clarify some of these ambiguities, the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology at King Abdulaziz University conducted a descriptive survey in August 2018 to learn about the structure of educational programs and availability of key courses at schools listed by the Saudi Ministry of Education (MOE)
While standardization efforts have been made at the international level for identifying and classifying core competencies in health informatics at the graduate level, this is an ongoing process due to the relative newness of the discipline as well as the ever-changing skills and knowledge associated with managing and maintaining the well-being of humanity
Summary
The professions of healthcare cover a vast and growing number of fields, many of which are ever evolving and increasingly interdisciplinary. The management and leveraging of these resources has led to the developing interdisciplinary field of health informatics [1, 2]. In comparing curricula of biomedical and health informatics programs in the United States, Kampov-Polevoi and Hemminger [3] determined that programs varied widely in terms of the professional competencies required for health informatics and in the key content of supporting curricula. This gap provided the impetus for their research, which attempted to provide a holistic view of current educational options. By 2012 the effects of this identity confusion became a priority for those seeking to clarify the competencies needed for accreditation in these fields
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