? ? Development of Biomedical and Health Informatics Competencies ? ? The growing role of information technology within health care delivery organizations has created the need to deepen the pool of informaticians who are able to help organizations maximize the effectiveness of their investment in information technology and in so doing maximize impact on safety, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of care. Today, informaticians are not of one mind on the curricula needed for informaticians throughout the discipline. It is now time for AMIA to hear different perspectives and work towards a common set of informatics' education principles for our members, current and prospective member institutions, and the health information technology community. ? Educators in the field of informatics have long desired a national framework by which managers in healthcare practice settings can define roles related to important informatics and HIT functions. A similar framework is needed to provide guidance to educators and educational administrators for the advancement of new and existing informatics training programs, as well as for faculty recruitment and development. This informatics competencies policy document will provide the foundation for developing these frameworks. ? ? To achieve this goal, AMIA seeks to stage a small conference of thirty invited subject matter experts to continue the development of biomedical and health informatics competencies. This grant requests $20,000 of funding to support activities in AMIA's pursuit of this effort. Project activities will include a pre-conference review of existing informatics artifacts, one face to face conference retreat among key stakeholders and thought leaders in the field, a consensus building process, a structured review of draft documents produced as a result of retreat, regular communication among project stakeholders, and dissemination of the biomedical and health informatics competencies through publication. ? ? ? ?
