The National Student Forum and the emergence of Health Informatics Clubs

Our greatest hope for the future of eHealth and the enabling of our health system is today's students. However, we face a challenge: few students are aware of careers in Health Informatics and other aspects of eHealth. This paper describes an initiative to engage our future workforce in HI. The National Student Forum for Health Informatics was established, in collaboration between the National Institutes of Health Informatics and COACH, to provide much needed opportunities for students to become involved in HI educational programs, research and student-student interaction. A key activity of NSF is the instantiation of Health Informatics Clubs at Canadian colleges and universities. We describe the rationale for NSF, its goals and objectives, its leadership and organization, and the development of the first HI Club at the University of Waterloo. Initiatives such as NSF are essential if we are to resolve the human resources crisis in HI.