Thursday, July 3, 2008

Colleges take part in the health informatics movement

By Vanessa R. Williams, Mass High Tech intern

The demand for medical professionals with training in health informatics is on the rise, partially due to the growing use of electronic medical records. While there may be a reluctance among older doctors to use electronic records, the Centers for Disease Control has reported that 47 percent of physicians under age 35 use electronic medical records. As a result, a number of colleges and universities are working to meet the need for more medical professionals trained in information technology.

The implementation of electronic medical records is only a small manifestation of the presence of health informatics, which the American Medical Association defines health informatics as the field of cognitive, information processing and communication tasks of medical practice, education and research. Now several New England schools are offering master’s degree programs in health informatics in response to the building demand for health care professionals trained in the field. Here’s a sample:

•At Southern Connecticut University in New Haven, a course titled “Health Care Informatics for Nursing” has recently been instituted as a requirement in the graduate core curriculum. The course focuses on applying health-care informatics both in theory and practice in medical services, as well as patient education.  While most health informatics programs are found in graduate programs, SCU also is developing courses for their undergraduate nursing programs that will be open to nursing majors and other students in the School of Health and Human Services. 

• Boston University Medical Center has implemented training programs that focus on the practical application of computers and IT in clinical care and research. Dr. David Ginn, director of the medical campus library says, “As the focus of academic medical libraries has shifted from physical collections to electronic access and teaching effective information skills, educating our faculty, students and staff in biomedical informatics has become one of our most important responsibilities.”

• Also in Boston, Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences and College of Computer and Information Sciences are offering an interdisciplinary master’s degree in health informatics. The non-thesis master’s program teaches graduate students the use of health-informatics-related technology, and better communication with IT professionals to improve the outcome and the delivery of health care . This link between the medical and technical sides of informatics gives Northeastern’s program a more in-depth focus on system design and setup, as well as product and software specification, according to the school. 

• The American Medical Informatics Association website (www.amia.org) lists more than 80 schools in the United States that have medical, nursing or health care informatics academic and training programs, including online courses, undergraduate, masters and doctorate programs.