10x10 with Oregon Health & Science University

Introduction to Biomedical and Health Informatics

The Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) at Oregon Health & Science University will be offering another Biomedical Informatics Distance Learning Course as part of the AMIA 10x10 Program.

The OHSU offering of 10x10 was the original offering in the program and has had the largest enrollment.  The 10x10 program was started when former AMIA President Dr. Charles Safran asserted that the United States needs one physician and one nurse trained in medical informatics in each of the 6,000 hospitals in the United States.  Dr. William Hersh of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) operationalized this definition by working with AMIA to launch the 10x10 program that aims to train 10,000 health care and related professionals in biomedical and health informatics by the year 2010.  The goal of the AMIA 10x10 program has been further validated by Dr. David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, who has estimated a need for an additional 50,000 individuals trained to meet President Barack Obama's goal of all Americans having their medical records in electronic format by 2014. The needs are equally strong outside the United States in the rest of the world.

The 10x10 program aims to provide introductory training to build the workforce that will enable clinically motivated use of IT to improve the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of healthcare and public health. Since the program was launched in 2005, over 1200 people, mostly from the US but also from a variety of international locations, have completed the course. About 15% of those graduating have gone on to advanced study in the field.  In addition, federal funding has recently become available at OHSU and other institutions for such study.

The goal of the AMIA-OHSU 10x10 course is to provide a detailed overview of biomedical and health informatics to those who will work at the interface of healthcare and information technology (IT).  The course also aims to provide an entry point for those wishing further study (and/or career development) in the field. It provides a broad understanding of the field from the vantage point of those who implement, lead, and develop IT solutions for improving health, healthcare, public health, and biomedical research. It provides up-to-date details on current events in the field, including the "meaningful use" of electronic health records specified by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, also known as the economic stimulus package).  Although the course has a clinical orientation, many non-clinicians working in health IT environments have found the course accessible and the knowledge gained invaluable to their professional development.

Director

Dr. William Hersh, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology in the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, serves as the Director of the OHSU 10x10 offering.

Dr. Hersh has been at OHSU since 1990, where he developed research and educational programs in medical informatics. He is internationally recognized for his contributions to the field. He is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.  Dr. Hersh also maintains the Informatics Professor Blog.