Informatics Training Programs Research Articles

Integrating health disparities content into health informatics courses: a cross-sectional survey study and recommendations.

To assess the extent to which health disparities content is integrated in multidisciplinary health informatics training programs and examine instructor perspectives surrounding teaching strategies and challenges, including student engagement with course material. Data for this cross-sectional, descriptive study were collected between April and October 2019. Instructors of informatics courses taught in the United States were recruited via listservs and email. Eligibility was contingent on course inclusion of disparities content. Participants completed an online survey with open- and closed-ended questions to capture administrative- and teaching-related aspects of disparities education within informatics. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics; qualitative data were analyzed using inductive coding. Invitations were sent to 141 individuals and 11 listservs. We obtained data from 23 instructors about 24 informatics courses containing health disparities content. Courses were taught primarily in graduate-level programs (n = 21, 87.5%) in informatics (n = 9, 33.3%), nursing (n = 7, 25.9%), and information science (n = 6, 22.2%). The average course covered 6.5 (range 2-13) social determinants of health; socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity (both n = 21, 87.5%) were most frequently addressed. Instructors described multiple obstacles, including lack of resources and time to cover disparities topics adequately, topic sensitivity, and student-related challenges (eg, lack of prior understanding about disparities). A foundational and translational knowledge in health disparities is critical to a student's ability to develop future equitable informatics solutions. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for the intentional and required integration of health disparities-specific content in informatics curricula and competencies.

Current Approaches and Trends in Graduate Public Health Informatics Education in the United States: Four Case Studies from the Field.

Background:Public Health Informatics (PHI) has taken on new importance in recent years as health and well-being face a number of challenges, including environmental disasters, emerging infectious diseases, such as Zika, Ebola and SARS-CoV-2, the growing impact of the Influenza virus, the opioid epidemic, and social determinants of health. Understanding the relationship between climate change and the health of populations adds further complexity to global health issues. Objectives: To describe four examples of curricula that exist in U.S. based graduate-level public and population health informatics training programs. Methods: Biomedical informatics educators are challenged to provide learners with relevant, interesting, and meaningful educational experiences in working with and learning from the many data sources that comprise the domain of PHI. Programs at four institutions were reviewed to examine common teaching practices that stimulate learners to explore the field of public health informatics. Results: Four case studies represent a range of pedagogical approaches to meeting the requirements of three established accreditation/certification agencies relevant to PHI education. Despite their differences, each program achieved the established learning objectives along with a substantive record of student learning achievements. Conclusion: The overarching goal of empowering learners to serve an active and dynamic role in enhancing preventive measures, informing policy, improving personal health behaviors, and clarifying issues such as quality, cost of care, and the social determinants of health, are essential components of PHI education and training, and must receive additional consideration now and in the future by educators, policy makers, administrators, and government officials.

Nursing Informatics Competency Based Assessment for Nursing Personnel in Primary Healthcare Centers in Tabuk

Background: Technology is an integral part of every role of nurses, nursing informatics competencies crucial competencies required in the contemporary healthcare system. When nurses have an expected level of informatics practice, they will utilize patient data in a way that grantees increase quality, maximize outcome, enhance patient satisfaction, and promoting evidence-based practice. Aim: To assess nursing informatics competencies for nursing personnel in primary healthcare centers in Tabuk. Method: A descriptive study conducted in primary healthcare centers in Tabuk. Nursing Informatics Competencies. The questionnaire used for data collection. Study subjects: The total sample size was (n=217) nurses personnel. Results: The highest percentage of nursing personnel was female. More than half of the study sample had associated nursing degree, and less than one-third of them had a bachelor's degree in nursing. About half of the study subjects were capable of computer literacy competency and informatics literacy competency. Meanwhile, about one-third of them were capable of information management literacy competency. More than half of them were capable of total nursing informatics competencies. Conclusion: More than half of them were capable of overall nursing informatics competencies. Meanwhile, more than one third were partially capable, and less than one-quarter of them were not capable. Recommendations: Involve nursing informatics competencies in nursing personnel performance appraisal. Conduct competency based nursing informatics training programs for nursing personnel according to their needs and to be up to date with new competencies. Develop curricular based competencies and further researches to investigate the correlation between nursing informatics competencies and patient safety. Keywords: Nursing Informatics, Informatics Competencies, Computer literacy, Information management literacy, Informatics Literacy.

Expanding Research Capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa Through Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Data Science Training Programs in Mali.

Bioinformatics and data science research have boundless potential across Africa due to its high levels of genetic diversity and disproportionate burden of infectious diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, Ebola virus disease, and Lassa fever. This work lays out an incremental approach for reaching underserved countries in bioinformatics and data science research through a progression of capacity building, training, and research efforts. Two global health informatics training programs sponsored by the Fogarty International Center (FIC) were carried out at the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali (USTTB) between 1999 and 2011. Together with capacity building efforts through the West Africa International Centers of Excellence in Malaria Research (ICEMR), this progress laid the groundwork for a bioinformatics and data science training program launched at USTTB as part of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative. Prior to the global health informatics training, its trainees published first or second authorship and third or higher authorship manuscripts at rates of 0.40 and 0.10 per year, respectively. Following the training, these rates increased to 0.70 and 1.23 per year, respectively, which was a statistically significant increase (p < 0.001). The bioinformatics and data science training program at USTTB commenced in 2017 focusing on student, faculty, and curriculum tiers of enhancement. The program’s sustainable measures included institutional support for core elements, university tuition and fees, resource sharing and coordination with local research projects and companion training programs, increased student and faculty publication rates, and increased research proposal submissions. Challenges reliance of high-speed bandwidth availability on short-term funding, lack of a discounted software portal for basic software applications, protracted application processes for United States visas, lack of industry job positions, and low publication rates in the areas of bioinformatics and data science. Long-term, incremental processes are necessary for engaging historically underserved countries in bioinformatics and data science research. The multi-tiered enhancement approach laid out here provides a platform for generating bioinformatics and data science technicians, teachers, researchers, and program managers. Increased literature on bioinformatics and data science training approaches and progress is needed to provide a framework for establishing benchmarks on the topics.

Approaches to Capacity Building for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Applications in Health

Many health systems and research institutes are interested in supplementing their traditional analyses of linked data with machine learning (ML) and other artificial intelligence (AI) methods and tools. However, the availability of individuals who have the required skills to develop and/or implement ML/AI is a constraint, as there is high demand for ML/AI talent in many sectors. The three organizations presenting are all actively involved in training and capacity building for ML/AI broadly, and each has a focus on, and/or discrete initiatives for, particular trainees.&#x0D; P. Alison Paprica, Vector Institute for artificial intelligence, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, University of Toronto, Canada. Alison is VP, Health Strategy and Partnerships at Vector, responsible for health strategy and also playing a lead role in “1000AIMs” – a Vector-led initiative in support of the Province of Ontario’s \$30 million investment to increase the number of AI-related master’s program graduates to 1,000 per year within five years.&#x0D; Frank Sullivan, University of St Andrews Scotland. Frank is a family physician and an associate director of HDRUK@Scotland. Health Data Research UK \url{https://hdruk.ac.uk/} has recently provided funding to six sites across the UK to address challenging healthcare issues through use of data science. A 50 PhD student Doctoral Training Scheme in AI has also been announced. Each site works in close partnership with National Health Service bodies and the public to translate research findings into benefits for patients and populations.&#x0D; Yin Aphinyanaphongs – INTREPID NYU clinical training program for incoming clinical fellows. Yin is the Director of the Clinical Informatics Training Program at NYU Langone Health. He is deeply interested in the intersection of computer science and health care and as a physician and a scientist, he has a unique perspective on how to train medical professionals for a data drive world. One version of this teaching process is demonstrated in the INTREPID clinical training program. Yin teaches clinicians to work with large scale data within the R environment and generate hypothesis and insights.&#x0D; The session will begin with three brief presentations followed by a facilitated session where all participants share their insights about the essential skills and competencies required for different kinds of ML/AI application and contributions. Live polling and voting will be used at the end of the session to capture participants’ view on the key learnings and take away points.&#x0D; The intended outputs and outcomes of the session are:&#x0D; &#x0D; Participants will have a better understanding of the skills and competencies required for individuals to contribute to AI applications in health in various ways&#x0D; Participants will gain knowledge about different options for capacity building from targeted enhancement of the skills of clinical fellows, to producing large number of applied master’s graduates, to doctoral-level training&#x0D; &#x0D; After the session, the co-leads will work together to create a resource that summarizes the learnings from the session and make them public (though publication in a peer-reviewed journal and/or through the IPDLN website)

Career Paths of Pathology Informatics Fellowship Alumni

Background: The alumni of today’s Pathology Informatics and Clinical Informatics fellowships fill diverse roles in academia, large health systems, and industry. The evolving training tracks and curriculum of Pathology Informatics fellowships have been well documented. However, less attention has been given to the posttraining experiences of graduates from informatics training programs. Here, we examine the career paths of subspecialty fellowship-trained pathology informaticians. Methods: Alumni from four Pathology Informatics fellowship training programs were contacted for their voluntary participation in the study. We analyzed various components of training, and the subsequent career paths of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni using data extracted from alumni provided curriculum vitae. Results: Twenty-three out of twenty-seven alumni contacted contributed to the study. A majority had completed undergraduate study in science, technology, engineering, and math fields and combined track training in anatomic and clinical pathology. Approximately 30% (7/23) completed residency in a program with an in-house Pathology Informatics fellowship. Most completed additional fellowships (15/23) and many also completed advanced degrees (10/23). Common primary posttraining appointments included chief medical informatics officer (3/23), director of Pathology Informatics (10/23), informatics program director (2/23), and various roles in industry (3/23). Many alumni also provide clinical care in addition to their informatics roles (14/23). Pathology Informatics alumni serve on a variety of institutional committees, participate in national informatics organizations, contribute widely to scientific literature, and more than half (13/23) have obtained subspecialty certification in Clinical Informatics to date. Conclusions: Our analysis highlights several interesting phenomena related to the training and career trajectory of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni. We note the long training track alumni complete in preparation for their careers. We believe flexible training pathways combining informatics and clinical training may help to alleviate the burden. We highlight the importance of in-house Pathology Informatics fellowships in promoting interest in informatics among residents. We also observe the many important leadership roles in academia, large community health systems, and industry available to early career alumni and believe this reflects a strong market for formally trained informaticians. We hope this analysis will be useful as we continue to develop the informatics fellowships to meet the future needs of our trainees and discipline.

The UCLA Health Resident Informaticist Program - A Novel Clinical Informatics Training Program.

Few opportunities exist for physician trainees to gain exposure to, and training in, the field of clinical informatics, an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited, recently board-certified specialty. Currently, 21 approved programs exist nationwide for the formal training of fellows interested in pursuing careers in this discipline. Residents and fellows training in medical and surgical fields, however, have few avenues available to gain experience in clinical informatics. An early introduction to clinical informatics brings an opportunity to generate interest for future career trajectories. At University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Health, we have developed a novel, successful, and sustainable program, the Resident Informaticist Program, with the goals of exposing physician trainees to the field of clinical informatics and its academic nature and providing opportunities to expand the clinical informatics workforce. Herein, we provide an overview of the development, implementation, and current state of the UCLA Health Resident Informaticist Program, with a blueprint for development of similar programs.

Environmental components and methods for engaging pathology residents in informatics training

Over the past several years, there has been increasing recognition of the importance of informatics in the practice of pathology, and this has led to initiatives that aim to integrate better and formalize instruction in informatics within the curriculum of pathology residency programs. The most notable of these programs is the Pathology Informatics Essentials for Residents resource developed by the Association of Pathology Chairs, Association of Pathology Informatics, and College of American Pathologists.[1] We believe that these initiatives are important. We also feel that the ultimate success of a residency-based informatics training program will depend greatly on the residency program's ability to interest and subsequently engage residents in informatics throughout the entire residency experience. In evaluating our own experience over the past 8 years, we feel that we have achieved a high level of success in supporting and cultivating resident interest in informatics, which has greatly aided the development of pathology informaticians. This development is distinct from, though related to, formal didactic training. Prior publications from our institution have proposed learning frameworks and teaching methodologies for teaching pathology informatics.[2] This manuscript differs in that we aim to both identify and describe the environment and the modalities that we believe have contributed to successfully engaging pathology residents in informatics education.

Big Data: Are Biomedical and Health Informatics Training Programs Ready? Contribution of the IMIA Working Group for Health and Medical Informatics Education.

The growing volume and diversity of health and biomedical data indicate that the era of Big Data has arrived for healthcare. This has many implications for informatics, not only in terms of implementing and evaluating information systems, but also for the work and training of informatics researchers and professionals. This article addresses the question: What do biomedical and health informaticians working in analytics and Big Data need to know? We hypothesize a set of skills that we hope will be discussed among academic and other informaticians. The set of skills includes: Programming - especially with data-oriented tools, such as SQL and statistical programming languages; Statistics - working knowledge to apply tools and techniques; Domain knowledge - depending on one's area of work, bioscience or health care; and Communication - being able to understand needs of people and organizations, and articulate results back to them. Biomedical and health informatics educational programs must introduce concepts of analytics, Big Data, and the underlying skills to use and apply them into their curricula. The development of new coursework should focus on those who will become experts, with training aiming to provide skills in "deep analytical talent" as well as those who need knowledge to support such individuals.

Certification for Physicians in Biomedical Informatics

Certification for Physicians in Biomedical Informatics

Board certification for pathologists in clinical informatics: Are you a lumper or a splitter?

This issue's article entitled “Clinical fellowship training in pathology informatics: A program description” is a first critical look at how pathology informatics fellowships will measure up to the task of preparing fellows for the clinical informatics subspecialty board examination.[1] Recently approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties, clinical informatics is unique among subspecialty board examinations because it is open to applicants who have primary certification in any medical specialty, including pathology.[2] The practice of pathology is quite different than other medical specialties, and this has led to opposing concerns about the contents of the exam. On the one hand, the board examination might either focus too much on non-pathology informatics issues such as electronic prescription writing, thereby reducing the likelihood that pathologists could pass the test. Conversely, the exam may lack sufficient depth for those areas of informatics which are critically important to pathologists, such as automation. The controversy has stimulated this commentary. The article compares a relatively new but very large pathology informatics fellowship program against the program requirements proposed by the Clinical Informatics Training Program Requirements team within the American Medical Informatics Association.[3] Many of the program requirements are similar to those found in other American College of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-certified programs. As with all such programs, the mechanisms by which such requirements are met have different flavors and nuances that may ultimately achieve the same goal. However, this paper brings to light specific uncertainties associated with an untested new subspecialty program. It points out that the program requirements may not be amenable to some of the peculiar flexibilities already built in to some existing pathology core training programs. At the authors’ institution, one such flexibility allows a trainee to do a fellowship before completing core pathology training. Pathology residents often do two or more fellowships, so the burden of a 2-year program requirement for pathologists who want to train in clinical informatics is discussed. Despite these differences, the author of this commentary was surprised by the number of similarities between the proposed program requirements and the existing requirements of the described pathology informatics fellowship. Therefore, the overall assessment of the similarities between pathology and non-pathology informatics may be more subjective than realized in the conclusions of the article. While pathology practice is unique in medicine, the informatics principles that pathology informaticists use to improve data acquisition, storage, management, and retrieval are the same as those used in non-pathology practices. This begs the question as to how training programs for pathologists in clinical informatics should be structured. If you are the proverbial “lumper,” then clinical informatics fellows of any primary specialty would train in the same program with the same administrative structure and overhead. “Splitters” would then argue for completely separate pathology informatics training programs that have little to no interaction with non-pathology informatics programs. The answer to this dilemma will be highly dependent on the institution and the distribution of potential informatics faculty within it. Institutions with an abundance of informatics faculty within one department will likely gravitate toward a specialty-specific training program. However, given the broad audience of the board examination and the fact that pathology informaticists are often called upon to help resolve data management issues between non-pathologists and the laboratory, a better model may be a hybrid of general and specialty-specific training. Much of this will certainly depend on the final structure and content of the board examination. The Association of Pathology Informatics is working with the American Board of Pathology and the American Board of Preventive Medicine to assist in the construction and execution of the board examination, anticipated at this moment to be first available in the fall of 2012. Criteria for the by-experience pathway for those of us who are already practicing informaticists are also being set. This involvement will assist in providing clear guidance to pathology departments on how to align the program requirements[3] and core content[4] with those of clinical informatics fellowships, regardless of whether they are completely or partially housed within a department of pathology.

A Decade After the Genome, Bioinformatics Comes of Age

A Decade After the Genome, Bioinformatics Comes of Age

Biomedical and Health Informatics Education and Research at the Information Technology Institute in Egypt

During the last decade, Egypt has experienced a revolution in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that has had a corresponding impact on the field of healthcare. Since 1993, the Information Technology Institute (ITI) has been leading the development of the Information Technology (IT) professional training and education in Egypt to produce top quality IT professionals who are considered now the backbone of the IT revolution in Egypt. For the past five years, ITI has been adopting the objective of building high caliber health professionals who can effectively serve the ever-growing information society. Academic links have been established with internationally renowned universities, e.g., Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in US, University of Leipzig in Germany, in addition those with the Egyptian Fellowship Board in order to enrich ITI Medical Informatics Education and Research. The ITI Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) education and training programs target fresh graduates as well as life-long learners. Therefore, the program's learning objectives are framed within the context of the four specialization tracks: Healthcare Management (HCM), Biomedical Informatics Research (BMIR), Bioinformatics Professional (BIP), and Healthcare Professional (HCP). The ITI BMHI research projects tackle a wide-range of current challenges in this field, such as knowledge management in healthcare, providing tele-consultation services for diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases for underserved regions in Egypt, and exploring the cultural and educational aspects of Nanoinformatics. Since 2006, ITI has been positively contributing to develop the discipline of BMHI in Egypt in order to support improved healthcare services.

Survey of biomedical and health care informatics programs in the United States

Informatics, in the classic definition, is a science that studies “the representation, processing, and communication of information in natural and artificial systems” [1] or, more pragmatically, “a discipline focused on the acquisition, storage, and use of information in a specific setting or domain” [2], such as health care or biomedical sciences. Informatics is also increasingly described as a profession that is still at the early stages of development [3]. There is continuing self-identification of different subfields of informatics, particularly those related to biomedicine and health care, both as scientific disciplines and as professions. One aspect of defining a profession or a subspecialty within it is establishing a set of agreed upon competencies and corresponding educational curricula [3]. Yet, while the number of programs “with ‘informatics’ in their names” is growing, these programs vary substantially in level and scope [4]. Our survey attempts to provide a snapshot of the current picture of informatics training programs related to biomedicine and health care in the United States. The purpose of the survey is twofold. First, the survey is intended as a resource for students, educators, and informatics professionals. Second, through compiling detailed information about existing educational opportunities, we attempt to contribute to the definitions of various informatics subspecialties. This is the fifth generation of surveys of informatics programs conducted by our research group; previous surveys were published online [5]. The first three surveys, carried out annually in 2002–2004, focused only on bioinformatics programs. In more recent iterations (2006 and current, 2008, versions), we moved to a biannual schedule, but broadened the survey scope to encompass medical, health, nursing, dental, and other related informatics programs. In the latest survey presented in this paper, we have also significantly expanded the information categories used to describe each program and paid special attention to grouping the program listings to better correspond to the various informatics subdisciplines. A number of web resources provide similar information, such as the International Society for Computational Biology's listing of degree and certificate programs [6] or the American Medical Informatics Association's list of training programs [7]. Our survey differs from such resources in several important ways: It cuts across the diversity of biomedical and health informatics subspecialties; it provides specific and detailed information for each program; and it presents the information in a way that facilitates comparison of programs within and between subspecialties.

Clinical health informatics education for a 21st Century World

This chapter gives an educational overview of: * health informatics competencies in medical, nursing and allied clinical health professions * health informatics learning cultures and just-in-time health informatics training in clinical work settings * major considerations in selecting or developing health informatics education and training programs for local implementation * using elearning effectively to meet the objectives of health informatics education.

Response to Kelly Near and Ann Duesing’s letter: “Informatics Training for Public Health Practitioners”

Kelly Near and Ann Duesing have performed a great service by attempting to replicate the authors’ randomized controlled trial on the effects of training on information-seeking behavior among public health professionals [1]. They have served the profession even further by reporting in their letter the challenges that they encountered in replicating our study and for reporting their interesting yet divergent results [2]. We had recommended further replication of our study, because we asked important questions that trended toward the affirmative for the two hypotheses tested but could not be confirmed at the level of statistical significance. While Near and Duesing were able to use our practical advice in replicating our study, their letter suggests that differences in their population in southwestern Virginia and unexpected problems with administering a consistent incentive system for participants probably explain the differences between the two studies. We found that public health health care practitioners viewed PubMed as useful for answering their native questions. As reported elsewhere [3,4], our trainees anonymously highly valued their PubMed training in both immediate and follow-up evaluations two months later. We were intrigued that Near and Duesing did not make the same observation, which might have been due to the involvement of different populations. This additional discrepancy between the two studies also deserves further investigation with public health practitioner populations elsewhere. Evidence-based practice guidelines [5] indicate that our study currently offers the best evidence to support existing library or informatics training programs. Clearly, readers of the Journal of the Medical Library Association need to continue to offer training programs, unless later studies convincingly suggest otherwise. Our study suggests support for the two hypotheses. To test these hypotheses successfully, a future study will need to recruit enough participants to reach statistical significance, while providing all participants with equal incentives to submit their questions. Our study suggests that without incentives to submit questions, participants will not take the time away from their many work-related demands to fully record their questions. Near and Duesing’s study could not achieve equal status for incentives because of the decentralized local health system in southwestern Virginia. In contrast, a system capable of providing a consistent incentive and administrative system could ensure the existence of conditions conducive for a randomized controlled trial. The National Association of County and City Health Officials profiles of local health departments suggest that the states of Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Vermont have strong state-centric authority over local health departments [6]. These states possibly offer the potential for replication because these states could likely ensure consistent administration of incentives, although we encourage others to test our hypotheses in other contexts. Unified, large, urban-area public health departments represent other plausible environments for rigorously replicating our study successfully. We will gladly share our detailed study protocols and any pragmatic advice, as we did for Near and Duesing, with any interested colleagues to ensure that any replications conducted elsewhere proceed smoothly.

Music Therapy May Reduce Pain and Anxiety in Children Undergoing Medical and Dental Procedures

Article Title and Bibliographic Information Music for pain and anxiety in children undergoing medical procedures: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Klassen JA, Liang Y, Tjosvold L, Klassen TP, Hartling L. Ambulatory Pediatrics 2008;8(2):117-28. Reviewer Tanja Bekhuis, PhD, MS, MLIS Purpose/Question To evaluate the effectiveness of music therapy for reducing pain and anxiety in children undergoing clinical procedures. Source of Funding NLM/NIDCR Pittsburgh Biomedical Informatics Training Program 5 T15 LM/DE07059-22 Type of Study/Design Systematic Review Level of Evidence Level 2: Limited-quality patient-oriented evidence Strength of Recommendation Grade Grade B: Inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence

Developing capacity in health informatics in a resource poor setting: lessons from Peru

The public sectors of developing countries require strengthened capacity in health informatics. In Peru, where formal university graduate degrees in biomedical and health informatics were lacking until recently, the AMAUTA Global Informatics Research and Training Program has provided research and training for health professionals in the region since 1999. The Fogarty International Center supports the program as a collaborative partnership between Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru and the University of Washington in the United States of America. The program aims to train core professionals in health informatics and to strengthen the health information resource capabilities and accessibility in Peru. The program has achieved considerable success in the development and institutionalization of informatics research and training programs in Peru. Projects supported by this program are leading to the development of sustainable training opportunities for informatics and eight of ten Peruvian fellows trained at the University of Washington are now developing informatics programs and an information infrastructure in Peru. In 2007, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia started offering the first graduate diploma program in biomedical informatics in Peru.

Program Requirements for Fellowship Education in the Subspecialty of Clinical Informatics

The Program Requirements for Fellowship Education identify the knowledge and skills that physicians must master through the course of a training program to be certified in the subspecialty of clinical informatics. They also specify accreditation requirements for clinical informatics training programs. The AMIA Board of Directors approved this document in November 2008.

Bridging the gap between biological and clinical informatics in a graduate training program

Several training programs in biomedical informatics in the United States are attempting to integrate biological and clinical informatics. However, significant differences in the cultures underlying these two disciplines pose barriers to a uniform educational solution. This paper recounts the experience at Columbia University in adapting a graduate program with an initial focus on clinical informatics to train bioinformaticians. The analysis begins by considering the development of the medical and biological informatics cultures over a 17-year period. Then we review how two separate curricula evolved to serve the needs of each group. Interviews with bioinformatics students and faculty indicated some dissatisfaction with the curriculum that developed within clinical informatics. Their comments are considered in the light of an analysis of the relationship between the application domains of biomedical informatics as a discipline. In response, a new curriculum was developed in which bioinformatics and clinical informatics are regarded as subdivisions of the same subject. A key feature of this curriculum is a new course, Theory and Methods in Biomedical Informatics, which presents informatics principles in their general form, and illustrates their application with examples drawn from across the biomedical spectrum. The paper concludes with suggestions for integrating informatics training programs at other institutions.