Beyond the Data: Changing Perspectives

The term health informatics refers to the management and use of healthcare information, via technological innovations to improve health care. With the exponential increase in health informatics, it is crucial that health graduates are well prepared to use the variety of technological resources available in the workplace. The focus of my doctoral research (Visosky. How well prepared is the next generation of health professionals to use health care informatics? A qualitative study of stakeholders’ views about health informatics curricula in the UAE. Doctoral Thesis, University of Bath, 2021) explored how well academia prepares future healthcare professionals in the use of health informatics. And, while this innovation has been around since the 1970s, accompanying the arrival of personal computers (Mihalas et al. Acta Informatica Medica 22:6–10, 2014), the uptake of informatics in the health and academic sectors has been described by some as hesitant and sporadic. The need to educate and thus change perspectives has become increasingly evident and was the impetus for this interdisciplinary project involving psychiatric nursing and health information management students at Douglas College in British Columbia, Canada.