Giunti Guido, Guisado-Fernandez Estefania, Belani Hrvoje, Lacalle-Remigio Juan R
University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
University College Dublin School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, Dublin, Ireland.
J Med Internet Res. 2019 Aug 12;21(8):e14086. doi: 10.2196/14086.
Health information technologies (HITs) such as electronic health records (EHR) and telemedicine services 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 HIT training of health professionals as a workforce is an increasingly recognized and understudied barrier.
The purpose of this study is to describe what courses on HIT topics are available at the graduate level for future health professionals in the European Union (EU) and to explore possible determining factors for their exposure to these courses.
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 a medical degree were manually explored to identify graduate-level courses that offer specific training on HIT topics. HIT topics were defined as courses or subjects that provided knowledge on the design, development, use, and implementation of HIT. Associations among potential factors such as population, yearly medical graduates, total number of physicians, EHR presence, and gross domestic product (GDP) were explored.
A total of 302 medical schools from the 28 member states of the EU were explored. Only about one-third (90/302, 29.80%) of all medical degree curricula offered any kind of HIT course at the graduate level; in the medical schools that offered HIT courses, the courses were often mandatory (58/90, 64.44%). In most EU countries, HIT courses are offered in less than half of the 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.
The current state of medical training in the EU leaves much room for improvement. Further studies are required for in-depth analysis of the content and manner of instruction that would fit present and future needs of HIT.
诸如电子健康记录（EHR）和远程医疗服务等健康信息技术（HIT）目前被用于协助临床医生为患者提供护理。采用HIT存在诸多障碍，包括投资与收益不匹配、工作流程中断以及对隐私和保密性的担忧。卫生专业人员作为劳动力缺乏HIT培训是一个日益受到认可但研究不足的障碍。
本研究的目的是描述欧盟（EU）未来卫生专业人员在研究生阶段可获得哪些关于HIT主题的课程，并探讨他们接触这些课程的可能决定因素。
对欧盟医学院校进行横断面描述性研究，以探讨HIT课程的普及情况。人工查阅所有提供医学学位的已确定高等学府的课程设置，以确定提供HIT主题特定培训的研究生水平课程。HIT主题被定义为提供有关HIT设计、开发、使用和实施知识的课程或科目。探讨了潜在因素之间的关联，如人口、每年医学毕业生数量、医生总数、EHR的存在情况以及国内生产总值（GDP）。
对欧盟28个成员国的302所医学院校进行了调查。在所有医学学位课程中，只有约三分之一（90/302，29.80%）在研究生阶段提供任何类型的HIT课程；在提供HIT课程的医学院校中，这些课程通常是必修的（58/90，64.44%）。在大多数欧盟国家，无论人均GDP如何，不到一半的医学院校提供HIT课程。HIT课程占比最高的国家人均GDP最低。这两个变量（人均GDP和HIT课程占比）之间似乎存在微弱的负相关（-0.49）。医学人力资源的可获得性与HIT课程占比的增加之间存在一种趋势，罗马尼亚、克罗地亚和希腊在这方面是例外。
欧盟当前的医学培训状况有很大的改进空间。需要进一步研究以深入分析适合HIT当前和未来需求的教学内容和方式。
