Evidence-Based Health Informatics as the Foundation for the COVID-19 Response: A Joint Call for Action.

BACKGROUND: As a major public health crisis, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic demonstrates the urgent need for safe, effective, and evidence-based implementations of digital health. The urgency stems from the frequent tendency to focus attention on seemingly high promising digital health interventions despite being poorly validated in times of crisis. AIM: In this paper, we describe a joint call for action to use and leverage evidence-based health informatics as the foundation for the COVID-19 response and public health interventions. Tangible examples are provided for how the working groups and special interest groups of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) are helping to build an evidence-based response to this crisis. METHODS: Leaders of working and special interest groups of the IMIA, a total of 26 groups, were contacted via e-mail to provide a summary of the scientific-based efforts taken to combat COVID-19 pandemic and participate in the discussion toward the creation of this manuscript. A total of 13 groups participated in this manuscript. RESULTS: Various efforts were exerted by members of IMIA including (1) developing evidence-based guidelines for the design and deployment of digital health solutions during COVID-19; (2) surveying clinical informaticians internationally about key digital solutions deployed to combat COVID-19 and the challenges faced when implementing and using them; and (3) offering necessary resources for clinicians about the use of digital tools in clinical practice, education, and research during COVID-19. DISCUSSION: Rigor and evidence need to be taken into consideration when designing, implementing, and using digital tools to combat COVID-19 to avoid delays and unforeseen negative consequences. It is paramount to employ a multidisciplinary approach for the development and implementation of digital health tools that have been rapidly deployed in response to the pandemic bearing in mind human factors, ethics, data privacy, and the diversity of context at the local, national, and international levels. The training and capacity building of front-line workers is crucial and must be linked to a clear strategy for evaluation of ongoing experiences.

Alignment of American Association of Colleges of Nursing Graduate-Level Nursing Informatics Competencies With American Medical Informatics Association Health Informatics Core Competencies.

This study yielded a map of the alignment of American Association of Colleges of Nursing Graduate-Level Nursing Informatics Competencies with American Medical Informatics Association Health Informatics Core Competencies in an effort to understand graduate-level accreditation and certification opportunities in nursing informatics. Nursing Informatics Program Directors from the American Medical Informatics Association and a health informatics expert independently mapped the American Association of Colleges of Nursing competencies to the American Medical Informatics Association Health Informatics knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The Nursing Informatics Program Directors' map connected an average of 4.0 American Medical Informatics Association Core Competencies per American Association of Colleges of Nursing competency, whereas the health informatics expert's map connected an average of 5.0 American Medical Informatics Association Core Competencies per American Association of Colleges of Nursing competency. Agreement across the two maps ranged from 14% to 60% per American Association of Colleges of Nursing competency, revealing alignment between the two groups' competencies according to knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These findings suggest that graduates of master's degree programs in nursing, especially those specializing in nursing informatics, will likely be prepared to sit for the proposed Advanced Health Informatics Certification in addition to the American Nurses Credentialing Center bachelor's-level Informatics Nursing Certification. This preliminary map sets the stage for further in-depth mapping of nursing informatics curricula with American Medical Informatics Association Core Competencies and will enable interprofessional conversations around nursing informatics specialty program accreditation, nursing workforce preparation, and nursing informatics advanced certification. Nursing informaticists should examine their need for credentials as key contributors who will address critical health informatics needs.

Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform - TIGER.

BACKGROUND: While health informatics recommendations on competencies and education serve as highly desirable corridors for designing curricula and courses, they cannot show how the content should be situated in a specific and local context. Therefore, global and local perspectives need to be reconciled in a common framework. OBJECTIVES: The primary aim of this study is therefore to empirically define and validate a framework of globally accepted core competency areas in health informatics and to enrich this framework with exemplar information derived from local educational settings. METHODS: To this end, (i) a survey was deployed and yielded insights from 43 nursing experts from 21 countries worldwide to measure the relevance of the core competency areas, (ii) a workshop at the International Nursing Informatics Conference (NI2016) held in June 2016 to provide information about the validation and clustering of these areas and (iii) exemplar case studies were compiled to match these findings with the practice. The survey was designed based on a comprehensive compilation of competencies from the international literature in medical and health informatics. RESULTS: The resulting recommendation framework consists of 24 core competency areas in health informatics defined for five major nursing roles. These areas were clustered in the domains "data, information, knowledge", "information exchange and information sharing", "ethical and legal issues", "systems life cycle management", "management" and "biostatistics and medical technology", all of which showed high reliability values. The core competency areas were ranked by relevance and validated by a different group of experts. Exemplar case studies from Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Taiwan/China, United Kingdom (Scotland) and the United States of America expanded on the competencies described in the core competency areas. CONCLUSIONS: This international recommendation framework for competencies in health informatics directed at nurses provides a grid of knowledge for teachers and learner alike that is instantiated with knowledge about informatics competencies, professional roles, priorities and practical, local experience. It also provides a methodology for developing frameworks for other professions/disciplines. Finally, this framework lays the foundation of cross-country learning in health informatics education for nurses and other health professionals.

Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER). The Future of Interprofessional Education Is Here!

This session will describe the TIGER Initiative journey, its evolution and accomplishments nationally and internationally. A powerful demonstration of the TIGER Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) will be highlighted along with case studies from around the world, with emphasis on global competencies and opportunities for engagement in all current TIGER activities and future plans.

How Health Information Tools Help Nursing: International Perspectives from Five Countries.

This presentation will be in a workshop format with a panel of presenters representing five countries. All speakers will address the question of how are health information tools helping the profession of nursing, thereby giving an international perspective, before inviting the audience to discuss and share their views. Health information tools are numerous, yet little consideration is sometimes given as to how these tools help nursing. Nursing, in this context includes the nurses at the bedside or nurses who work directly with individuals, families or communities, as well as nursing administration, management, research and education. The panel will describe how health information tools help nursing using numerous examples and the following five point framework: Access to evidence-based resources; improved communication; monitoring of patients; improved safety and increased efficiency.

Health Information Technology Scholars Program: From Implementation to Outcomes.

AIM: This article reports the development, implementation, and outcomes of the Health Information Technology Scholars (HITS) program. BACKGROUND: HITS is one of nine faculty development collaborative projects funded by the Health Resource Service Administration to integrate information and other technologies in nursing education and practice. METHOD: In addition to evaluating the content and context of the program, the evaluation includes descriptive statistics, goal attainment scaling, diffusion of innovation index, utilization of knowledge survey, and exemplars from scholars. RESULTS: The HITS program developed 265 faculty across 132 nursing programs in 43 states over 5 years. HITS scholars impacted more than 59,000 students and 9,000 other faculty. These technology leaders have numerous presentations, publications, and awards. CONCLUSION: Success of the HITS program is attributed to the strength of the faculty development collaborative partnership, the applicant selection process, and the program design.

Nursing Informatics Education: From Automation to Connected Care.

The use of health information technologies has evolved over the last 50 years. These technologies have moved from the automation of data and data processing to connected care tools that are part of a health care ecosystem that provides the best care at the point of care. To correspondence with the evolution of technologies and their disruptions within the health care delivery system, there is a need to re-examine the necessary competencies of health care professionals.