EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN HEALTH INFORMATICS - THE IT-EDUCTRA PROJECT

In this contribution both the EDUCTRA project of the European Advanced Informatics in Medicine Programme and the IT-EDUCTRA project of the T elematics Applications Programme (Health Sector) are described. EDUCTR A had as aim to investigate which gaps in knowledge health professiona ls have with respect to health informatics and to suggest ways to reme dy this. It was assumed that health professionals had a basic understa nding of health informatics and that additional educational material o nly had to cover the knowledge necessary for appreciating the new prod ucts coming from the AIM programme. A state-of-the-art survey revealed that the knowledge of health professionals with respect to health inf ormatics was deplorable. Guidelines for curricula were therefore propo sed to enable potential teachers to design courses. IT-EDUCTRA is a co ntinuation of the EDUCTRA project. It has as aim to create learning ma terials covering a broad area of health informatics. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.