The American Medical Informatics Association and CDC have launched a five-year project to enhance health informatics in public health and to strengthen the public health workforce by training them in health informatics, Healthcare IT News reports.
The program aims to encourage new innovations in public health informatics. The project also is intended to:
- Improve curriculums for public health informatics;
- Organize meetings for experts on topics, such as education and research, that will advance the U.S. public health informatics agenda; and
- Strengthen informatics at CDC.
"Done properly, public health should be enhanced substantially through a wide range of [IT] applications," Don Detmer, AMIA president and CEO and the project's principal investigator, said, adding, "To this end, public health professionals need training in informatics as well as a new workforce of public health informaticians capable of leading essential educational and research initiatives."
CDC and AMIA project is funded by the Office of the National Center for Public Health Informatics and CDC's Office of the Director (Monegain,
Healthcare IT News, 10/12).