An Innovative Learning Experience for Entry to eHealth Careers

We describe an innovative educational program that provides an easily-accessible introduction to Applied Health Informatics (AHI) in an effort to attract new trainees to this discipline. We call this program the AHI Bootcamp. It includes an intense, interactive, but brief on-site program, with the majority of its content delivered in approximately 80 hours of on-line presentations. The AHI Bootcamp introduces individuals, who have a broad spectrum of backgrounds but little or no knowledge of Health Informatics (HI), to the nature, concepts, methods, tools and applications of HI to address information-based challenges in health maintenance and health care delivery. AHI is the discipline that is concerned with the planning, procurement, deployment, implementation, management, effective use, and evaluation of informatics solutions in the health space. This program targets the high profile areas of AHI, orienting participants to the pursuit of broader and deeper explorations in the field.