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What Do They Mean by "Health Informatics"? Health Informations Posts Compared to Program Standards
Josette F Jones1, Enming Zhang1, Anand Kulanthaivel1
1Department of BioHealth Informatics, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics
|January 4, 2018
Summary
Health informatics (HI) job skills frequently do not align with academic curricula. A computational analysis revealed a significant gap, suggesting improved communication between industry and academia is crucial for workforce development.
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Computational Linguistics
- Educational Assessment
Background:
- A significant disconnect exists between the skills required for health informatics (HI) jobs and the competencies taught in academic programs.
- This misalignment can hinder the effective training and deployment of HI professionals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To perform a gap analysis between the skills demanded in HI job postings and the objectives of academic curricula.
- To identify specific areas where educational frameworks do not meet industry needs.
Main Methods:
- Utilized computational topic modeling to analyze a corpus of 475 HI-related job postings from a US-based job board.
- Categorized job posting content using the seven core knowledge domains defined by AMIA-CAHIIM.
- Compared computational modeling-generated topics with the established core knowledge domains.
Main Results:
- The core domain representing the intersection of health, technology, and social/behavioral sciences in HI matched only 45.9% of the analyzed job posting content.
- Identified specific discrepancies between required job skills and current curriculum coverage.
Conclusions:
- A substantial gap exists between academic training in health informatics and the practical skills demanded by the job market.
- Emphasized the need for enhanced bidirectional communication between academic institutions and industry professionals to align educational objectives with workforce requirements.