Defining Core Competencies in Informatics

If you ask two well-regarded experts in informatics as to the definition of their discipline, you are highly likely to get two different answers. It is for this reason that it is remarkable that there are now several maturing efforts to define a set of core competences. These include those that are primarily around the implementation and use of clinical information/decision support systems. Others emphasize probabilistic reasoning, formalized decision science, statistically informed knowledge-mining and expertise in different communications modalities. Whatever the truly most central core competencies, it is very clear that we don't have enough experts in any of them.

Just as the lack of sufficiently well-trained bioinformaticians is delaying our harvest of the fruit of the human genome project, the lack of well-trained clinical informaticians is likely to be a rate-limiting step in the Recovery Act's plan to broadly implement electronic health record systems.