JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health information technologies (HIT) such as electronic health records (EHR), telemedicine services and others, are currently used to assist clinicians provide care to patients. There are many barriers to HIT adoption, including mismatches between investments and benefits, disruptions in the workflow, and concerns about privacy and confidentiality. The lack of training of health professionals as a workforce regarding HIT is an increasingly recognized and under studied barrier.

Objective:

The purpose of this study is to describe what courses on HIT topics are available in the graduate level for future health professionals in the EU, and to explore possible determining factors for their exposure to said courses.

Methods:

A cross-sectional descriptive study of EU medical schools was performed to explore the prevalence of HIT courses. The curricula of all identified higher learning institutions that offer the Medical Degree (MD), were manually explored looking for graduate level courses that offer specific training on HIT topics. HIT topics were defined as course or subject that provided knowledge on the design, development, use and/or implementation of HIT. Potential factors such as population, yearly medical graduates, total number of physicians, EHR presence and GDP as were explored for associations.

Results:

A total of 302 Medical schools from the 28 member states of the EU were explored. Only a third (29.80%, n=90/302) of all MD curricula offered any kind of HIT course on the graduate level; in those medical schools that did offer HIT courses, they were often required courses (64.44%, n=58/90). In most EU countries, HIT courses are present in less than half of their medical schools, regardless of the country’s GDP per capita. Countries with the highest percentages of HIT course presence have the lowest GDP per capita. There seems to be a weak inverse correlation (-0,49) between the two variables (GDP per capita and HIT course presence). There is a trend between the availability of medical human resources and an increase in the presence of HIT courses, with Romania, Croatia and Greece as outliers in this respect.

Conclusions:

The current state of medical training in the European Union in this regard leaves much room for improvement, further studies are called for in-depth analysis on the type of contents and manner of instruction that would fit present and future needs concerning HIT.