A Health Informatics Curriculum Congruent with IS 2010 and IMIA Recommendations for an Undergraduate Degree

In addition to being a relevant program for health information technology workers, a recently proposed Health Informatics program was designed with additional objectives in mind: that the program is compatible with the IS 2010 Model Curriculum and that it satisfies the International Medical Informatics Association recommendation for undergraduate curricula. In this paper, we show that the program meets the IS 2010 guidelines based on an analysis of skill expectations for health informatics graduates. We produce a three-way mapping of IS 2010 knowledge and skill sets to IMIA learning outcomes to health informatics course sets. The program is comprised of three course sets: information systems courses, health informatics courses, and courses comprising the clinical environment. Courses in all three sets contribute skills in adequate depth with no gaps in coverage of required skills in either model. The success of the mappings indicates that health informatics should be a robust information systems program that will increase the productivity of individuals and organizations through the application of health information technology. The health informatics curriculum is largely an organizational systems-based program designed to enable new workflow models for health environments.