Starting out

Why dont you start out with basic computer courses at your local community college. Unless you are proficient with MS office products you will still need this foundational knowledge in any informatics program. After that think about a certificate program - I can't remember if the majority of programs require a BS or BA as a prereq but do some research and find out. Here's one example:

http://nursing.iupui.edu/LifelongLearning/

Use the left navigation bar to see the different course offerings

AND

I just received this today - its to be formally announced next week:

Subject: New development at OHSU

To all OHSU informatics students (and copied to faculty and alumni),

I am writing to tell you about an exciting new program we are developing in partnership with the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). One of the reasons why I want to tell you about it here first is that it may raise some concern or confusion on your part. I also want to answer any questions you have.

You all are trailblazers (not Portland's floundering basketball team!) in the new generation of informatics professionals who are being educated in formal educational programs. Whether you are in our certificate, master's, or PhD program, you will likely play a major role as an informatics professional in the years ahead.

But in addition to people like yourselves, it is also increasingly recognized that we need a larger number of people (both clinicians and non-clinicians alike) with expertise in informatics to serve and represent users of IT systems in health care and biomedical research. The current degree programs do not completely fulfill this need, especially for those who will not be professional informaticians who devote most or all of their professional work time to informatics (like most of you). Even though OHSU has the largest informatics education program in the country, we only graduate a dozen master's and two dozen certificate students per year.

What is needed, in addition to the existing degree programs, is one that will provide people (mainly clinicians) with the informatics expertise to contribute to projects in their local settings. As you all know from our classes, the most important factor in a successful health care IT implementation is the involvement of an engaged user community. We therefore need physicians, nurses, and others in health care who understand the basic concepts of informatics so they can work with the more advanced informatics and IT people who will be doing the actual development and/or implementation.

This has been a hot topic of discussion for the field in recent months, especially with myself, the new AMIA president Don Detmer, and the AMIA board chair Charlie Safran. We are all convinced that the field must train a much larger number of people (especially clinicians) in the basics of informatics.

As such, we have come up with the idea of a program to educate such individuals. We are going to call it Ten by Ten (10x10), based on the notion that we need to educate 10,000 health care professionals in informatics by the year 2010. The goal of this program is not to train professional informaticians, but rather to give interested clinicians the knowledge and skills to participate as local leaders in health care IT initiatives.

The program will be formally announced this week. There will actually be two announcements. First will be a general AMIA announcement about the 10x10 program generically. This will be followed by an announcement of AMIA's first partner in the program, which will be OHSU.

The program will consist of a 10-12 week on-line course (essentially a repackaged version of 510, which most of you on this list have taken or will be taking soon), followed by a 1-2 day intensive session (usually consisting of programming around the AMIA fall or spring meetings). Those who complete the 10x10 program will be able to obtain credit for the OHSU BMI 510 course by completing the program and passing the BMI 510 final exam (which will not be part of the 10x10 program). Unfortunately, we will not be able to offer credit for the AMIA 10x10 program retrospectively, but I will be more than willing to vouch to any employer, supervisor, etc. that the BMI 510 course you have taken is nearly identical to 10x10.

The first offering of the course will begin in July. The course will run through October, and the in-person intensive session will take place at the AMIA Annual Symposium in October in Washington, DC. A second offering will take place early next year.

As for those of you who have not taken BMI 510, I cannot give you advice on taking one versus the other. Clearly the new program will have a little novelty, but it is also somewhat more expensive (due to the in-person session). In the long run, it will not matter, since you can carry either course forward into the rest of the program.

Given that the informatics field is new and evolving, there is likely to be confusion among some people as to what informatics training is offered by which programs and who is best skilled for specific jobs. I can assure you that I will distinguish the skill sets that people achieved from education in the different programs. There are many tasks and activities that the 10 by 10 program will prepare individuals for, particularly in serving as clinician-IT liaison roles in smaller settings, such as physician practices and community hospitals. Those who undertake roles with more application management and development, or implementation leadership, will clearly be best served by existing certificate and degree programs.

I am happy to talk to any of you about this by email, on the phone, or in person. It is an exciting opportunity and will likely raise the visibility of the field as well as the OHSU program you are all a part of.

Sincerely,

Bill

I was wondering if anyone knew of a program for informatics that is less than a Bachelors. I am an ADN and, unfortunately because of my ex, my credit is horrendous. I would like to get into informatics, but everything I find wants a BSN at the least. I will be paying this out of my pockets as I am planning on moving soon and therefore can't take advantage of the tuition reimbursement at my place of employment and was looking for something to start out with on the ground floor. Right now I am the administrator of the monitoring system in our cath lab and this has peaked my interest in this field.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

tvccrn

Thank you very much for the link and the information. I do have a working knowledge of the MS office products and am getting a daily crash course on IT topics from the guy I work with. Tomorrow I am learning how to place a entire network into an active directory and make a subserver for the applications I need to get to. At least that's what I think I'm learning. :chuckle

Wow, you are getting some excellent networking skills. FYI be aware that networking and server skills are not the same as Informatics specifically clinical informatics. Just as Informatics and Information Technology are not synonymous and HIM .

Sounds like your current experiences will give you the opportunity to investigate which direction you want to focus your career. Good Luck on your journey!

Thank you very much for the link and the information. I do have a working knowledge of the MS office products and am getting a daily crash course on IT topics from the guy I work with. Tomorrow I am learning how to place a entire network into an active directory and make a subserver for the applications I need to get to. At least that's what I think I'm learning. :chuckle