The results of a poll by our NHS colleagues shows support for certification in informatics roles. A similar position in NZ would support greater uptake of postgraduate qualifications, CHIA, CAHIMS and CPHIMS.
I would be interested to hear what you all think about the value of certification and fellowships as evidence of professional competency. These conversations often become personal, where people with certification or fellowship status believe they are important, and those without maintain their credibility from industry experience or transferable skills. However within our medical professions, qualifications, certifications and registration are seen as foundational, but we do not have the same standards of professionalism or demonstration of competency within informatics.
while haveing a clear outline, for those who want to follow this path, is benificial, certification or fellowship may force it to belong to traditional professional groups. To capitilise fully on digital technologies and data we need to be working in differnt ways, allowing all groups to participate fully. We should not shore up the tradiitonal structures that may hold back change.
In medicine as long as you can prove competency you can perform surgery on patients. You do not have to be a qualified surgeon. If I was the patent I would want an experienced surgeon rather than one with lots
of letters after his / her name and little experience. I was told as a graduate that if I wanted to be a GP I would need to be GP college accredited. Well it turns out that is very difficult to define quality in General practice and patients mostly wouldnât
know or care what those letters after your name mean. The cost and time of following MOPS procedures should not be underestimated especially over a practicing lifetime. The discussion here will fall along predictable lines as you say those who have qualifications
will support certification and those who do not will not.
Be assured I am not at all against people who study in their special interest area whatever that is. Far from it but as one who is certainly not at the beginning of my medical Informatics career give me a HCP who is sitting in the action
seat with real patients and has built an understanding of how stuff works to create the next HealthOne (etc) piece over someone with a flash degree from the worldâs best university. Just sayingâŚ
I must say I agree with @martin.wilson .
While Credentialing and Academic-Teaching is important, I would assume that it will serve an important role for people who either would like to (a) expand their knowledge, or (b) be introduced to the ins and outs of the Health IT.
Having said that - plenty of people already have so much to offer, merely due to the fact that they have been working in the field (or growing into it) and have valid and invaluable insights and ideas.
My concern is that if we push for certifications, we will be screening out otherwise competent people, while creating a potential bias towards others.
Personally - I would probably advocate for having academic programmes developed and offered, as they will surely serve a purpose, but at the same time - be ware of Credentialing per se as a compulsory requirement or as a benchmark. The entire world of IT is holding a dual model as such, hence I suspect we should do the same.
I am a proponent of certifying the competencies each of us has. We are a multi-skilled bunch, but the challenge is how to describe our skills, then articulate to others, as well as maintaining those competencies. I agree whatever we choose also needs to make sense back to all our respective registration authorities. I think having some form of credentialing supports our nursing and allied health colleagues to get the same respect and opportunities as those from a medical background.
While our clinical registrations and DHB credentialing describe our clinical skills, MidCentral DHB used SFIA to describe the digital skills of the Digital Services team. SFIA describes, regardless of how you obtained them, what your digital skills are and in a format that makes sense in a non-clinical digital world. Of course, there are quirks.
SFIA does not preclude learnings the skills via academic study, nor the use of a post-nominal as a communication vehicle. âFHINZâ anyone? We all deserve such, and they work in the healthcare setting.
There is nothing wrong with hard earned experience but it does not define a skill or knowledge set. Using the clinical example mentioned before; I have known many clinicians at the MOSS level (career grade registrars in the UK) that develop âweird ideasâ demonstrating a lack of basic understanding (I have also known excellent career registrars!). The same can occur in Health Informatics, foundations are important. I would not expect a computer science degree (anyway that is a totally inappropriate qualification for HI) but we need some recognition of core knowledge so that we command respect when in discourse with IT professionals plus when allied professions are conversing with the medical profession.
A base certification demonstrates a broad knowledge of the subject and not a binocular view that I sometimes come across with my medical colleagues. E.g. They say âThis is the solution I have seen it work or I have used it successfully elsewhereâ they straight jacket themselves by limited knowledge. A certification or qualification will assure an open approach with careful structured analysis reaching a considered reasoning and proper scrutiny.
A certificate only needs to be a demonstration of knowledge, not necessarily preceded by a course but a course would be helpful, it could be awarded in certain circumstances by historical or practical recognition.
Perhaps a fellowship is more appropriate a bit like the IEEE where presentation of past work, a project and a âviva voceâ suffice.
In short I support the idea.
Then maybe the future of Health Informatics will be secure and in safe hands!
People like to be recognised/acknowledged for their knowledge, experience and capabilities. I think credentials can do that for us, e.g. fellowship, awards or CHIA. A clearly articulated career path is another form of recognition â when you see someone in that career path you recognise their knowledge, experience and capabilities, you know who youâre dealing with and the direction theyâre moving in.
An emerging profession like clinical informatics doesnât have a clear entry point (e.g. a standardised degree/apprenticeship model), nor does it have clear qualifications that say âThis is a clinical informaticianâ. Credentials such as qualifications help us identify one another and recognise the work we do, especially the newbies, so that we can support one another.
Credentials are part of the professional environment in which we work. Since clinical informatics is an emerging profession, we can design our own credentialing system, which includes âgrandfatheringâ those who have gone before us. Our credentialing system doesnât have to follow traditional systems, indeed, its complexity gives us the opportunity to be creative.
Whilst I can appreciate both sides of the argument for some form of formal education and/or credentialing I feel that this may lead to division between not just those who have and have not completed formal education to support credentialing but also between those who can afford training in the first place. Within the nursing profession (still less visible in this space) as with many others, we struggle to fund nurses to complete post graduate certificates to support their clinical careers. With increasing costs of tertiary post-graduate education this is only going to get harder. Insisting on a system of mandatory training to support credentialing could restrict access for those who cannot afford to complete it.
I agree that people like and should be recognised for their knowledge and experience and also that a clear career path is needed so ânewbiesâ like me can see the way forward. I am not so convinced that tertiary education is the way to go. A new system of credentialing that recognises the varied ways individuals attain their skills and knowledge would meet the needs of the varied healthcare team and system in which we all work.
I think if people wish to gain these qualifications then that is their choice and will stand them in good stead when applying for roles. However I believe a requirement for certification would have a chilling effect on who applies for roles and gets involved. Many of us would not have the time nor resources to embark on qualifications for roles that are often bolted on to other substantive jobs.
Another perspective is whether âClinical Informaticsâ is a profession vs a trade. A profession is defined by a recognized standard that conveys trust to society about what âcounsel and serviceâ a âprofessionalâ will provide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession). Perhaps, the âcertificationâ is limited to the âclinicalâ part? So, as long as someone is a âprofessional clinicianâ and meets the professional standards of their clinical field, they donât need to demonstrate âinformaticsâ standards to be a âprofessionalâ clinical informatics? The benefits and costs (resources, time) of having standards is clear in the comments above. If professional informatics standards are deemed best, to compliment professional clinical standards already achieved, a graduated approach may be best: an âexperientialâ pathway that identifies gaps in academic knowledge, and an âacademicâ pathway that identifies gaps in experience. Has there been research/evaluation that we can draw on to look at whether there is different outcomes/performance between a well experienced trades-person vs well experienced professional?
So this is an interesting thread and I wonder if we are all taking the same definition of an Informatician and what exactly we mean by that and the role they play?
To me we need a variety of bodies to move us into the new Digital era and these bodies need to be those with both formal skills who may have worked clinically but now their role is non-clinical and then we need those clinical bodies who are living and breathing the environment. This environment will be different in every place that they work (bearing in mind that most clinicians in active clinical practice will not move jobs as opposed to those who move into the non-clinical fields who may move roles frequently}. We also need those bodies who have special skills in management generally and change management in particular. In fact I have chosen to pursue a Masters in Health Service Management (thanks to @i.hunter) with only a small emphasis on digital as that is what I believe suits my role as CDIS.
We are in a brave new world and I agree with all of the above itâs just that we are all have quite different experiences depending on the nature of our work. In my opinion we donât necessarily need a whole lot more bodies who are pursuing formal digital roles, what we need is to infiltrate digital skills throughout the whole of the health system, including our medical and nursing schools so that we produce a workforce that are adaptable.
I do not think we should pigeon hole people and be prescriptive but rather embrace this wonderful amorphous workforce with itâs variety of skills and talents as we need them all.
Iâve just seen this on the HiNZ sector updates by @RMcBeth. I think that many CiLN members would be worthy fellows - please do apply!
Applications for the Fellowship of Health Informatics New Zealand Programme (FHiNZ) are now open, and you can apply here.
âMany fellowship programmes prioritise academic accomplishment, however we have taken a more holistic approach recognising peoplesâ contribution and service to health informaticsââ, says Karen Blake, HiNZ board member.
HiNZ announced the programmeâs Founding Fellows in eHealthNews.nz on 11 March 2021 and their bios and photos are available on the HiNZ website.
Applications close on 4 June 2021 and you can find out more about the programme here. Please contact @charis if you have any questions.
