Education for health information professionals: Perspectives from health informatics in the U.S.

While interest and activity in health informatics continues to increase worldwide, concerns about the most appropriate educational preparation for practice also arise. Health informatics is an interdisciplinary field that pursues effective use of data, information and knowledge to support effective decision making; in the health field, those efforts are directed toward improving healthcare. Recent trends suggest that there is now sufficient activity in health informatics for it to emerge as a field in its own right distinct from its parent disciplines. Several professional associations are pursuing accreditation processes that will exert control over health informatics education, but currently no similar moves have been made by the information professions. Although some educational programs for health informatics are located in health sciences schools, schools of information science have an important role to play, particularly in educating health informationists. The authors urge information science educators to engage in dialogue with other health informatics stakeholders to ensure that the core principles and values of the information sciences are retained in health informatics, and that no one field exerts professional control to the exclusion of others.