UBC's eHealth Strategy Office, Faculty of Medicine Authors: Liz Heathcote and Lana Newton

1. eHIPP Rounds
eHealth Market Research
Liz Heathcote
Lana Newton

2. Contents
• Introduction
• Current reporting on eHealth field
• Results of our market research
• Existing and planned UBC Courses
• Questions and Discussion

3. Introduction and Background
eHealth
education at
UBC

4. eHealth Landscape
• Review of literature, particularly:
– eHealth landscape and future
– job prospects for graduates
– HI competencies
– existing programs

5. eHealth landscape
Since 2001, Canadian focus primarily on electronic health records.
$1.6-billion has been spent from federal funds, to build
nationally compatible systems and platforms
In a study of electronic health record adoption
among 11 wealthy nations, Canada ranked last in
physician utilization at 37%.
Canada Health Infoway: http://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/lang-
en/about-infoway/news/media-room
Canadian public health care sector is
worth more than $150 billion per year

6. eHealth landscape
BC health system faces “cost pressures from changing demographics;
shortages in health human resources; growing costs of managing
chronic diseases…”
Leitch et al. “Leveraging Information Technologies…”
B.C. has invested approximately $146 million in eHealth
projects to “bring lab results, diagnostic scans,
medication histories, and electronic Rx online ...”
Gov’t News Release at http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-
2009/2008HSERV0101-001697.htm
President Obama has allocated $2 billion for
HIT infrastructure:
• $36-40B - electronic health record adoption
• $118M - workforce development.

7. Job market pros
• “Ahead of the curve career”*
• Current Canadian workforce of 32,540 needs to
increase by 6,320 - 12,330 by 2014^
• eHealth is becoming central to health services, thus
need:
o healthcare workers who know why/ when/ how eHealth tools;
o healthcare IT specialists;
o health administrators & consultants with IT & clinical workflow skills and
knowledge;
o researchers in ehealth, human factor or technology-based research.
*U.S. News & World Report, Dec 2008
^ Health Informatics and Health Information Management — Human Resources Report (Nov 2009)

8. Job market cons
• Temporary, project-based positions
• Lag in prediction to realization of job
availability
• Difficulty finding positions
• Difficulty locating reliable salary information

9. Job descriptions
• COACH’s HI professions matrix from
‘emerging professional’ to ‘master’ at
http://coachorg.com/career_development/professio
nalism/core_competencies.htm
• UK Health Informatics Career Framework
(HICF) (http://www.hicf.org.uk/).

10. Existing Programs
Clinical

11. Potential Student Survey
• Not sure of longevity and “mainstream”ness
of eHealth
• Not sure of value
• Peripheral understanding
• More interested in certificates or
specializations

12. Potential Student Survey

13. Potential Student Survey

14. Student Survey - motivations

15. Student Survey - barriers

16. Student Survey - Topics
Topic Areas for Postgraduate eHealth/ HI Study
14m. Legal, security, privacy issues
14l: Change Management
14k. Project Management
14j: Future Trends
14i: Genomics and bioinformatics
14h: Clinical robotics
14g. Clinical Support Systems
14f: Health Care Systems
14e. Role and benefits of ICT in health
14d: Telehealth
14c. Health care sector
14b: History & development
14a: Data and databases
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Very important (4) Important (3) Somewhat Important (2) Not at all important (1)

17. Potential Employers
Who did we interview?
• Average years in career: 12 +
• Range: less than 5 years to 25 years

18. If you could create an eHealth Masters Grad, who would it
be?

19. Potential Employer Interviews: Preliminary
Conclusions
• eHealth has increasingly large impact on
healthcare
• There is a lag in uptake of eHealth because
the field needs more professionally trained:

20. So??
• Still defining structures, the field itself
• eHealth & HI suffering from a low profile
• Existing health science/ medical graduates
• applied eHealth skills
• program evaluation skills
• Clinical vs IT vs business
• How does this match with your experience/ needs?

21. eHealth education at UBC
• Undergraduate – IHHS302, medical program
redesign
• Postgraduate – Research Methods in eHealth
• High School – summer camps
• Web 2.0 in eHealth likely from September
• Professional Development – eHIPPs, short
courses specific to health profession/ cultural
context

22. Questions?
Liz liz.h@ubc.ca
Lana lana.n@ubc.ca