Health and medical informatics education for nurses and health service managers

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1386-5056(98)00047-1Get rights and content

Abstract

Health and Medical informatics is a discipline encompassing and combining aspects of all health, medical and informatics disciplines. Consequently, the topics to be covered in any educational program can vary considerably both in depth and breadth. Given that such programs need to meet the needs of a very diverse health professional workforce, educators need to develop curricula to suit specific target groups although common topic areas need to be included. This paper presents the state of play regarding nursing informatics education. It discusses informatics education for health service managers primarily in Australia through the use of a case study and compares these with some other similar programs. It then explores some of the issues encountered which are seen as impediments to the progression of health and medical informatics education, the most significant of which is traditional University organisational structures which do not readily facilitate multidisciplinary educational programs.

Section snippets

Nursing informatics education

The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Nursing Informatics (NI) special interest group has established a working group on nursing informatics education looking into course accreditation, course type, core competency requirements and mode of delivery issues. In addition, members of IMIA NI are working closely with the European Commission funded Nightingale project which aims to develop a nursing informatics curriculum and courseware material to suit. The work began in 1996 and

Health service managers informatics education

Most established health and medical informatics programs have a strong medical or technological focus or both. The degree of integration of these disciplines varies considerably 4, 5. The Society of Health Administration Programs in Education [6]provides an overview of all Australian health service management educational programs. Only two Australian undergraduate and two post graduate programs integrate the study of information systems with health service management, some other programs

Educational needs

Having established that there is a need to improve health and medical informatics educational opportunities in general, these needs are now examined more specifically in terms of the nursing and health service managers' educational needs. An examination of the roles of nurses, health information managers and health service managers reveals that nurses are high level information processors in all areas of nursing practice. This may be described as the generation, management and processing of

Contemporary expectations requiring information usage

Most health systems today emphasise ‘best practice’ in an effort to improve overall performance in terms of organisational efficiency and effectiveness [16]. Of particular interest are outcomes. This requires the optimum use of information and communication technologies. It involves everyone, clinicians, managers and information managers to a greater or lesser extent in any health care setting. To meet the informatics educational needs of these groups requires flexible curricula as many

Issues encountered

There are limits to the computing infrastructure we can provide to our students. The modem pool is never large enough to meet the demand for remote access, technical support for students is frequently severely stressed and we are unable to provide the same low cost service to all our students. A large number of our students are computer illiterate when they enrol and a number of our new undergraduate students could be classed as technophobic. Limitations regarding the existing copyright laws

Conclusion

In conclusion their are a number of impediments to the progression of Health Informatics Education. These are the continuation of traditional organisational structures and outdated processes, a lack of appreciation of the discipline by decision makers and the general public, and a shortage of suitably qualified teachers. Curricula need to suit new roles using a multidisciplinary approach. University structures need to be such that they facilitate multidisciplinary course delivery and

References (20)

  • Nightingale website:...
  • J. Mantas (Ed.), Health Telematics Education, IOS Press, Amsterdam,...
  • A. Hasman et al.

    Education and training of health informatics in Europe

  • A. Hasman, A. Albert, P. Wainwright, R. Klar, M. Sosa (Eds.), Education and training of health informatics in Europe,...
  • J.H. van Bemmel, A.T. McCray (Eds.), 1996 and 1997 Yearbook of Medical Informatics Education and Training Sections,...
  • Society of Health Administration Programs in Education (SHAPE), Members Program Directory, SHAPE, Sydney,...
  • Commonwealth of Australia, Health on Line: A Report on Health Information Management and Telemedicine, House of...
  • Commonwealth of Australia, Report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies on...
  • Commonwealth of Australia, Report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies on...
  • Commonwealth of Australia, Report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies on...
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.
View full text