Health and biomedical informatics: opportunities and challenges for a twenty-first century profession and its education.
OBJECTIVE
Characterize the health and biomedical informatics workforce, its professionalization, and its education.


METHODS
Literature review and analysis.


RESULTS
Although the value of health information technology is increasingly well-documented, there are still barriers to its widespread adoption around the world. One of those barriers is a well-defined and competent workforce for developing, evaluating, and implementing systems. There are plenty of opportunities in health and biomedical informatics, yet there also is still much that we do not know about this workforce and its education.


CONCLUSIONS
Continued efforts must be made to characterize and understand the optimal organization and education of this workforce.
Hersh
William
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Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA. hersh@ohsu.edu
D048088:Informatics / Q000193:education*; D007857:Leadership; D014481:United States; D000078329:Workforce