Health and medical informatics education for nurses and health service managers

Health and Medical informatics is a discipline encompassing and combining aspects of all health, medical and informatics disciplines. Consequently, the topics to be covered in any educational program can vary considerably both in depth and breadth. Given that such programs need to meet the needs of a very diverse health professional workforce, educators need to develop curricula to suit specific target groups although common topic areas need to be included. This paper presents the state of play regarding nursing informatics education. It discusses informatics education for health service managers primarily in Australia through the use of a case study and compares these with some other similar programs. It then explores some of the issues encountered which are seen as impediments to the progression of health and medical informatics education, the most significant of which is traditional University organisational structures which do not readily facilitate multidisciplinary educational programs.