The digital transformation of health implies for professionals to know different worlds such as information technologies and medical informatics. What is required to study digital health?
Miguel has worked as a technology director in a health institution for fifteen years. As a Systems Engineer, he has seen how the digital transformation in health has driven his institution but, precisely for that reason, he recognizes the importance of training in issues related to digital health.
Digital health integrates various components such as information and communication technologies, medical informatics, information systems, care processes, as well as involving service-providing institutions, health governing bodies, academia, and the General population.
On the other hand, medical informatics as an interdisciplinary field that studies and seeks to use health information to solve problems and support decision-making in the sector should allow adequate monitoring of the health status of the population, both at the intra-institutional level. as extra-institutional from public health, to manage risk and take care of the health of the population. All the consolidated information generates knowledge, which must be used by the health governing bodies in order to support the generation of health policies.
Given the relevance of this specialization, an important component in the education and training of professionals who work on issues related to digital health, since they are the ones who intervene in each of the aspects of the process, and therefore they must have the knowledge and necessary skills, in order to obtain optimal health results.
In Chile, for example, academics from five universities grouped in the National Center for Health Information Systems (CENS) estimated that in 2019 they had a deficit of at least 3,500 professionals specialized in new health technologies.
Rewatch our webinar with digital health experts. Training programs in Digital Health in Latin America. In this sense, it is important that professionals in the areas of health, engineering, administrators, and other areas involved, have the training and acquire knowledge, skills, and competencies in topics such as information and communication technologies, medical informatics, information systems, data analytics, telehealth, bioinformatics, epidemiology, health project planning, effective communication, among others.
In this way, the professionals have applied knowledge to offer solutions to the new challenges of the health sector and manage to obtain the maximum benefit from the information obtained, to finally provide better care to patients and the general population. Countries like Chile, Argentina, and Colombia already have master’s degrees in spatialities associated with this area.
Faced with this challenge, Chile, for example, has proposed a series of job profiles that describe the relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes that these professionals must achieve, since it is they who will ultimately promote these tools and initiatives.
The final step in the process is to make all the information accessible to the patient. It is the intention of Miguel, now Master in Medical Informatics. Make Information both accurate and interdependent and sensitive, just like human beings. Only then will any policy be truly public.
Do you know specialized programs in digital health in your country? Share it in the comment section below.
Digital transformation is one of the routes that the IDB has identified in our 2025 strategic vision for the sustainable recovery of Latin America and the Caribbean.
