A Conceptual Framework for Education in Health Informatics: guidance for the Libyan context

Abstract

Health informatics (HI) is a newly developed branch of knowledge that is concerned with how to realize Information and Communication Technology (ICT) potentials in increasing the efficiency and safety of healthcare process. Health informatics as a discipline has not matured yet and its definition, scope and purpose are still not well articulated. Meanwhile, healthcare reforms, advocated by many governments and health authorities, stress the importance of ICT implementation in healthcare. Universities and educational institutes develop programs and course tracks to train and graduate qualified individuals in the field of health informatics. Major aim of such educational programs is to qualify individuals with various level of knowledge about ICT potentials and capable of harnessing these potentials in healthcare context. Another aim is to graduate new breed of professionals, namely health informaticians, who understand the concepts and methods of HI and lead the cause of improving the way healthcare is conducted. Most of the published work in HI literature discusses the discipline and educational efforts in the developed countries and few on developing countries. This paper attempts to synthesize a conceptual framework for education in HI and draw some guidelines for developing a HI educational program in a Libyan University.