Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics: Second Revision

BACKGROUND

The purpose of educational recommendations is to assist in establishing courses and programs in a discipline, to further develop existing educational activities in the various nations, and to support international initiatives for collaboration and sharing of courseware. The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) has published two versions of its international recommendations in biomedical and health informatics (BMHI) education, initially in 2000 and revised in 2010. Given the recent changes to the science, technology, the needs of the healthcare systems, and the workforce of BMHI, a revision of the recommendations is necessary.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of these updated recommendations is to support educators in developing BMHI curricula at different education levels, to identify essential skills and competencies for certification of healthcare professionals and those working in the field of BMHI, to provide a tool for evaluators of academic BMHI programs to compare and accredit the quality of delivered programs, and to motivate universities, organizations, and health authorities to recognize the need for establishing and further developing BMHI educational programs.

METHOD

An IMIA taskforce, established in 2017, updated the recommendations. The taskforce included representatives from all IMIA regions, with several having been involved in the development of the previous version. Workshops were held at different IMIA conferences, and an international Delphi study was performed to collect expert input on new and revised competencies.

RESULTS

Recommendations are provided for courses/course tracks in BMHI as part of educational programs in biomedical and health sciences, health information management, and informatics/computer science, as well as for dedicated programs in BMHI (leading to bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree). The educational needs are described for the roles of BMHI user, BMHI generalist, and BMHI specialist across six domain areas - BMHI core principles; health sciences and services; computer, data and information sciences; social and behavioral sciences; management science; and BMHI specialization. Furthermore, recommendations are provided for dedicated educational programs in BMHI at the level of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. These are the mainstream academic programs in BMHI. In addition, recommendations for continuing education, certification, and accreditation procedures are provided.

CONCLUSION

The IMIA recommendations reflect societal changes related to globalization, digitalization, and digital transformation in general and in healthcare specifically, and center on educational needs for the healthcare workforce, computer scientists, and decision makers to acquire BMHI knowledge and skills at various levels. To support education in BMHI, IMIA offers accreditation of quality BMHI education programs. It supports information exchange on programs and courses in BMHI through its Working Group on Health and Medical Informatics Education.

Development and delivery of an interdisciplinary course in mobile health (mHealth)

BACKGROUND

Interdisciplinary practice is a primary focus within the United States health care system. Despite the existence of interdisciplinary educational efforts in pharmacy for many years, the practice only recently entered mainstream health care education. Informatics offers interdisciplinary educational opportunities. Mobile health (mHealth), an informatics sub-discipline, is the use of mobile devices for health and wellness activities. We used the mHealth domain as the context for an interdisciplinary learning experience for pharmacy and computer science and software engineering (CSSE) students.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY

Educational activities focused on creating an mHealth course sequence and an mHealth application (app). Students worked in teams to complete various assignments, including developing and presenting a course proposal, building a purchase plan for mHealth equipment, developing an mHealth app prototype, delivering a disease state presentation (pharmacy students only), developing use case scenarios (CSSE students only), and completing peer evaluations.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY

Course evaluations were only available from pharmacy students. They indicated an overall favorable rating (mean 3.27-3.55; 4=strongly agree). Survey data collected after students entered the workforce indicated that students felt better prepared than their colleagues to work with individuals from other disciplines (mean 4.82; 5=strongly agree). Students also indicated using the knowledge from course proposal development in their careers (mean 4.27; 5=strongly agree). Through team interactions, students learned from each other while overcoming challenges related to terminology and content areas. Skills learned through team interactions reflect real-world processes and are expected to support students' future professional responsibilities.

Biomedical and Health Informatics Education - the IMIA Years

OBJECTIVE

This paper presents the development of medical informatics education during the years from the establishment of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) until today.

METHOD

A search in the literature was performed using search engines and appropriate keywords as well as a manual selection of papers. The search covered English language papers and was limited to search on papers title and abstract only.

RESULTS

The aggregated papers were analyzed on the basis of the subject area, origin, time span, and curriculum development, and conclusions were drawn.

CONCLUSIONS

From the results, it is evident that IMIA has played a major role in comparing and integrating the Biomedical and Health Informatics educational efforts across the different levels of education and the regional distribution of educators and institutions. A large selection of references is presented facilitating future work on the field of education in biomedical and health informatics.

An abridged history of medical informatics education in europe

This contribution presents the development of medical informatics education in Europe. It does not discuss all developments that took place. Rather it discerns several themes that indicate the progress in the field, starting from the initiation phase to the final quality control phase.