Portland, Ore.
Oregon Health & Science University will be the first partner of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) program in an ambitious effort to train 10,000 health care professionals in applied health and medical informatics by 2010. The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) is leading the program, known as "10x10.""One of the most important factors in successful health care information technology implementations is an informed and engaged community of users. This program aims to educate local leaders at the interface of clinical and information technology staff," said William Hersh, M.D., professor and chairman of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology (DMICE) in the OHSU School of Medicine.
The AMIA 10x10 program at OHSU is a12-week course that will prepare students as leaders in health and biomedicine information technology. Graduates of the 10x10 program will be ready for work with hospitals and clinics, health product vendors and manufacturers, and other universities. They will also be able to use the course as a launching pad for further studies in the OHSU graduate program. Medical informatics is the field concerned with the acquisition, storage and use of health care information.
"Our goal in providing this course is to provide a broad survey of biomedical informatics as well as a detailed understanding of the use of information technology in health and biomedicine," said Hersh who will lead the pilot program at OHSU.
The 10x10 pilot program at OHSU will consist of online courses units culminating in an intensive in-person session. The first in-person session will be held in conjunction with this year's AMIA Annual Symposium. The Web-based portion of the course will be provided through readings, on-line lectures, interactive discussion and self-assessment tests. Students will study electronic and personal health records, computer-based physician order entry systems, health information exchange, standards and terminology, and health care quality and error prevention.
The in-person training session will bring students together to integrate the material, present course projects, and meet field leaders. Visiting faculty from selected nationally recognized informatics training programs also will participate.
The 10x10 curriculum is based on OHSU's biomedical informatics distance learning program as well as AMIA's education programs. OHSU was among the first to offer a medical informatics distance-learning program.
The 10x10 program at OHSUs will include cover the following topics:
* Overview of Discipline and Its History
* Biomedical Computing
* Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchange
* Decision Support: Evolution and Current Approaches
* Standards: Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security
* Evidence-Based Medicine and Medical Decision-Making
* Information Retrieval and Digital Libraries
* Bioinformatics
* Imaging Informatics and Telemedicine
* Other Informatics: Consumer Health, Public Health, and Nursing
* Organization and Management Issues in Informatics
* Career and Professional Development
The first course in the 10x10 program at OHSU will begin in July 2005 with a second course opening in February 2006. For more information about 10x10 visit www.amia.org, e-mail 10x10@amia.org, or phone AMIA at 301 657-1291. AMIA plans to establish similar programs with other partners across the country.
The OHSU DMICE has an international reputation in biomedical informatics with more students than any similar program in the world. It is a leader in biomedical informatics research, developing new approaches to electronic medical records, computerized physician order entry, and access to online knowledge resources
OHSU has awarded more than 60 master's in the biomedical informatics since 1998 and has about 40 students currently enrolled. A doctoral program began in the fall of 2004, and a postdoctoral fellowship has existed since 1992. For more information, contact the OHSU program administrator at informat@ohsu.edu or 503 494-4563 or visit www.ohsu.edu/dmice to access the OHSU medical informatics Web site.