THE NEED FOR A COHERENT CURRICULUM AND SUPPORTED INFRASTRUCTURE IN HEALTH INFORMATICS EDUCATION - THE HEALNET EXPERIENCE

The Canadian National Centres of Excellence Network, Health Evidence A pplication and Linkage Network (HEALNet) is a network linking universi ties, the private sector and other public sector organisations in supp orting research and fostering commercial opportunities. Its aim is to develop high quality health care decision support methodologies and to ols that support the transfer of research evidence into practice. The HEALNet education program aims to support the training of highly quali fied personnel as well as the development of educational approaches so that health personnel can better exploit such methodologies and decis ion support tools given the new opportunities of information technolog y. There is a need to draw from the different types of expertise withi n HEALNet to provide an integrated curriculum. At the same time, there is a concern regarding the lack of a coherent infrastructure in healt h informatics in many Canadian medical schools. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.