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 Telematics Applications Programme (Health Sector) are described. EDUCTRA had as aim to investigate which gaps in knowledge health professionals have with respect to health informatics and to suggest ways to remedy this. It was assumed that health professionals had a basic understanding of health informatics and that additional educational material only had to cover the knowledge necessary for appreciating the new products coming from the AIM programme. A state-of-the-art survey revealed that the knowledge of health professionals with respect to health informatics was deplorable. Guidelines for curricula were therefore proposed to enable potential teachers to design courses. IT-EDUCTRA is a continuation of the EDUCTRA project. It has as aim to create learning materials covering a broad area of health informatics.