Federal grant fosters program for biomedical information professionals

The medical informatics program in the UNT School of Library and Information Sciences, in collaboration with the Texas A&M Medical Sciences Library, is creating a program to draw more people into careers in biomedical sciences information management. The two groups were awarded a $410,000 recruitment grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Medical informatics, also known as health informatics, combines elements of library and information sciences, computer science, information technology and medicine to manage health information, says Ana D. Cleveland, professor of library and information sciences, director of UNT's medical informatics program and one of the principal investigators in the grant project. She says that people in the medical informatics field typically serve as librarians, information professionals and researchers to assist health care professionals in problem-solving and decision-making.

Other investigators in the project are Martha Bedard and Gale G. Hannigan from the Texas A&M Medical Sciences Library. Also involved from UNT are Philip Turner, associate vice president for academic affairs for distance education and professor of library and information sciences; Debrah Beck, health professions coordinator; and Chwee Chng, Regents Professor of kinesiology, health promotion and recreation.

The grant funds an undergraduate course, Biomedical Information Sciences Management, to be offered online to both UNT and Texas A&M pre-med and health and kinesiology students interested in careers in biomedical informatics. The top 10 achievers in the course will be offered fellowships to attend graduate school in health informatics at UNT. The fellowships cover tuition, provide a stipend and offer opportunities for recipients to attend professional conferences in the field.

Fellowship recipients will also be a part of UNT's Information Advisor On-Call, a program pairing medical informatics students with practicing doctors and residents in both the Department of Family Medicine at the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth and the Texas A&M medical school.

"Our students will be directly addressing the clinical and research needs of working health care professionals," Cleveland says. "UNT has proven itself a leader in health informatics by creating this interdisciplinary program and partnering with Texas A&M to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for bioinformatics personnel to meet today's clinical needs."

The undergraduate course begins in Fall 2004

IMLS is a federal grant-making agency located in Washington, D.C. This year, it awarded nearly $10 million to support 27 inaugural projects for its Recruiting and Educating Librarians for the 21st Century initiative.

BY RUFUS COLEMAN rcoleman@unt.edu

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