The Changing Landscape: The View
from My Window
Charles P. Friedman, PhD
Schools of Information and Public
Health
University of Michigan
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Out the Window, I See…
 A proliferation of programs
 Increasing confusion about what
informatics (and thus informatics
education) is and isn’t
 And thus, increasing confusion about
which of these programs are and are
not “informatics”
 I am going to try to outline some
boundaries
2
What Informatics Is: Three Visions
Cross-training between a set of basic
sciences and a domain
II. Pursuit of a “Fundamental Theorem”
III. “Tower of Achievement”
I.
3
Informatics Vision I: Informatics as
Cross-training
Basic Informational
& Behavioral
Sciences
Information Science
Computer Science
Cognitive Science
Organizational Science
Implementation Science
etc.
An Application
Domain
“<Domain> Informatics”
Health
Clinical profession
Biology
Public Health
etc.
4
So an “Informatician” is Different…
Basic Informational &
Computational Sciences
An Application
Domain
What an Informatician Knows
What a Scientist Knows
What a
Clinician or
Public Health
Practitioner
Knows
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Informatics Vision II: “The Fundamental
Theorem of Biomedical Informatics”*
(
+
) >
The “practice” of informatics is the pursuit of
information and knowledge resources that seek to
make people “better” than they would be if
unassisted, and also to explore if they have been
successful in that pursuit.
Informatics is about people, groups, organizations,
cultures—as much as it is about technology.
*Friedman CP. A ‘fundamental theorem’ of biomedical informatics. Journal of the
American Medical Informatics Association, 16: 169-170, 2009.
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Informatics Vision III: The Tower of
Achievement*
Study
of
Effects
System
Deployment
Informatics training
touches each level
of the tower and
the science at
each level.
System
Development
Model Formulation
*Friedman CP. Where’s the science in medical
informatics? JAMIA 2: 65-67, 1995.
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Informatics Isn’t…
 Scientists or clinicians tinkering with
computers
 Management of large datasets per se
 Deploying and configuring EHRs in
pursuit of Meaningful Use, or
supporting deployment
 The profession of health information
management
 Anything done using a computer
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The Changing Landscape…
Not Informatics
Informatics
HIT Workforce Programs
Research Programs
• Certificates
• Fill ~9 ONC workforce roles
HIM Programs
• Bachelors and masters
degrees
• Practice within the
bounds of an
established profession
•Doctoral degrees
•Teaching and research
consistent with the
Fundamental Theorem
and the “Tower”
Professional Programs
•Masters degrees
•Fill advanced informatics
practice and leadership
positions consistent with
Fundamental Theorem and
the “Tower”
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