Summary
Objectives:
To report about the themes and about experiences with practicums in the management
of information systems in health care settings (health information management) for
medical informatics students.
Methods:
We first summarize the topics of the health information management practicums/projects
that the authors organized between 1990 and 2003 for the medical informatics programs
at Heidelberg/ Heilbronn, Germany, UMIT, Austria, as well as for the informatics program
at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Experiences and lessons learned, obtained from
the faculty that organized the practicums in the past 14 years, are reported.
Results:
Thirty (of 32) health information management practicums focused on the analysis of
health information systems. These took place inside university medical centers. Although
the practicums were time-intensive and required intensively tutoring students with
regard to health information management and project management, feedback from the
students and graduates was mainly positive.
Discussion:
It is clearly recommended that students specializing in medical informatics need
to be confronted with real-world problems of health information systems during their
studies.
Keywords
Medical informatics - health informatics - hospital information systems - health information
systems - education
