This is Very Sad – But it Reflects the State of E-Health in Australia I Fear.

When you visit the Health Informatics site of the Central Queensland University you are now greeted with the following announcement.

http://healthinformatics.cqu.edu.au/

Health Informatics

Central Queensland University

The Health Informatics Research Group ceases to exist at Central Queensland University as from 16 November 2007. All current HI research students will continue to be supervised by former CQU staff now in adjunct positions till completion. New research students can enrol via the University of Melbourne.

CQU will no longer accept new student enrolments into its Health and Nursing Informatics educational programs. Existing students will be able to complete their active study programs. New educational programs are under development to be offered next year by another provider. More about that in 2008 as this is a work in progress.

All Health Informatics Research Group members, including current Adjunct Professors remain dedicated to their respective research areas, in particular the openEHR approach, in new positions and functions; we are continuing with the implementation of various funded projects and will continue to collaborate to realise our shared vision.

• Prof. Evelyn Hovenga will continue to be based in Rockhampton, work virtually and travel as required.
• Consultant, openEHR Foundation, University College London
• Honorary Academic Fellow, Nursing Informatics, Austin Centre for Applied Clinical Informatics, Austin Health
• Honorary Professor, Health Informatics Network, University of Melbourne (TBC)
• Dr Carola Hullin has taken up the role of facilitator of the global Health Informatics collaboration with Latino America, especially with regard to openEHR.
• Dr Sebastian Garde has taken up a position with Ocean Informatics, one of the leading providers of Health IT solutions empowered by openEHR.
• Maria Madsen will continue to be employed by CQU and look after all coursework students during the planned HI phase out period to be completed by the end of 2009.

The electronic Journal of Health Informatics (eJHI) previously hosted and managed by CQU, will continue to operate as the official journal of HISA (Health Informatics Society of Australia) and ACHI (Australian College of Health Informatics) and further collaborators are being sought.

All Health and Nursing Informatics mailing lists previously hosted by CQU have been or are in the process of being transferred to new hosts.

Continue here to the former and no longer maintained pages of the Health Informatics Research Group.

Comment:

It seems to me we have reached a bit of a nadir here. As far as I know there is no course work based Bachelors or Masters in Health Informatics currently being offered anywhere in Australia (please let me know if I am wrong – I don’t include courses in this comment that are mostly for Health Information Managers that are targeted at Medical Records Management Staff etc) and we really can’t afford to have Health Informatics Groups be closing!

We really can’t develop a profession, or make a real difference, unless we can train a reasonable number of people and ensure they have a credible career path to follow. This announcement does not bode well for any of those hopes. It would be really good that as part of the 'Education Revolution' we could start something in the Health Informatics domain!

A sad day!

David.