Chair:

• Professor Kaija Saranto (view LinkedIn Profile) – Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland, Finland. e-mail: kaija.saranto@uef.fi

Co-Chair:

• Professor Ricardo Correia (view LinkedIn Profile) – Department of Community Medicine Health Information and Decisions, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto. e-mail: rcorreia@med.up.pt

Honorary Chair:

• Professor John Mantas (view LinkedIn Profile) – Health Informatics Laboratory, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. e-mail: jmantas@nurs.uoa.gr

Executive Members: Nicole Egbert, Pauleen Mannevaara, Sabrina Araujo

National contact points:

• Inge Cort Madsen, Denmark
• Daniel Rodrigues, Portugal
• Hanna Suominen, Australia

Institutional contact points:

• Pedro Marques, University of Porto
• Ammenwerth Elske, UMIT Tirel

Members

• Alfred Winter, Univ. Leipzig
• Antoine Lamer, Univ. Lille
• Mihaela Vida, Univ. Politehnica Timisoara
• Georgi Chaltikyan, Deggendorf Institute of Technology
• Birgit Schneider, Univ. Leipzig
• Maria Tsirintani, University of West Attica. Greece
• Maryam Jafarpour, Medical University of Vienna

 

Main Objectives

Introducing eHealth applications and the Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) discipline into healthcare requires high-quality, educated, and trained healthcare professionals. Education is considered the most appropriate tool to significantly improve the acceptance attitudes and behavior of professionals working in the healthcare environment toward digital health applications. EFMI is aware of the importance of Education, and in its history, the working group on education was the first to be established. Over the years, the members of the WG have actively participated in updating the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Since education has an international value and there are no borders in its objectives, the working group seeks to achieve international cooperation in its main objectives, which may be summarized as follows: information on existing programs and curricula in the field, dissemination of experiences in implementing educational programs, evaluation, and assisting of programs, and finally promoting certification of users in BMHI knowledge and skills.

A more detailed reference to the objectives can be found below:

• to disseminate and exchange information on Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) programs and courses
• to exchange experiences of how BMHI is taught and to improve the implementation
• to utilize the developed by AC2 database on programs in BMHI education
• to assist the AC2 process of certification of knowledge and skills of users in BMHI
• to promote and foster the accreditation process of BMHI programs in Europe based on the AC2 Initiative
• to enhance the cooperation between EFMI and IMIA in the accreditation process
• to disseminate and participate in developing international recommendations on BMHI education
• to support BMHI courses and exchange of students and teachers within the EFMI countries
• to investigate the possibility of establishing summer courses organized by the WG EDU
• to present WG EDU activities during STCs, MIEs, and MEDINFOs.

Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics:

• Bichel-Findlay J, Koch S, Mantas J, Abdul SS, Al-Shorbaji N, Ammenwerth E, Baum A, Borycki EM, Demiris G, Hasman A, Hersh W, Hovenga E, Huebner UH, Huesing ES, Kushniruk A, Hwa Lee K, Lehmann CU, Lillehaug SI, Marin HF, Marschollek M, Martin-Sanchez F, Merolli M, Nishimwe A, Saranto K, Sent D, Shachak A, Udayasankaran JG, Were MC, Wright G. Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics: Second Revision. Int J Med Inform. 2023 Feb;170:104908. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2022.104908. Epub 2022 Oct 29. PMID: 36502741. Link
• Mantas J, Ammenwerth E, Demiris G, Hasman A, Haux R, Hersh W, Hovenga E, Lun KC, Marin H, Martin-Sanchez F, Wright G; IMIA Recommendations on Education Task Force. Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics. First Revision. Methods Inf Med. 2010 Jan 7;49(2):105-120. doi: 10.3414/ME5119. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 20054502. Link
• Recommendations of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) on education in health and medical informatics. Methods Inf Med. 2000 Aug;39(3):267-77. PMID: 10992757. Link

Activities

• 2025
  • The University of Porto will update the WG EDU website under the leadership of Professor Correia.
  • The working group will have a workshop in October at EFMI STC2025 in Osnabruck.
  • In May, at MIE 2025 in Glasgow, we will organize a workshop focusing on programs in BMHI education across Europe. Together with the AC2 Committee, we aim to update the database of BMHI educational programmes soon.
    • The EFMI Education Working Group met at MIE 2025 (May 20, Glasgow) to review the evolution of BMHI education, share best practices, and outline future directions. The session included historical insights, current objectives, and a discussion on the application of AI in education. Participants collaboratively explored the development of a European BMHI Education Database in coordination with AC2, and agreed on concrete next steps, including wider community engagement and updating national course data. The group reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening BMHI education across Europe through collaboration, innovation, and accreditation.
• 2024
  • Since MIE2024, new members have joined the working group to update views on content and methods in BMHI education.
• 2023 – older
  • Activities to enhance the implementation of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics education were organized in August MIE 2024 in Athens and in November EFMI STC 2024 in Timisoara as a continuum to MedInfo 2023.
  • In October 2023, members of WG EDU participated in a panel at the colloquium entitled “MEDINFOR IV: Medicine in the Information Age” in Portugal. A poster detailing a proposal to integrate ChatGPT into Biomedical and Health Informatics education was also presented.
  • In July, a panel was organized at MedInfo2023 in Sydney to disseminate the possibilities for using the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics in education.
  • In May, the MIE2023 conference in Gothenburg organized a panel and a workshop focusing on the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Recommendations on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics.
  • John Mantas invited the most distinguished colleagues in the field to an international symposium summit in Athens (29/10/2022). The participants presented original review papers in their respective domains with an in-depth, bird’ s-eye critical view that also looked in breadth across the timeline of an entire career.
  • An Educational Plenary Panel Session was organized at the EFMI STC2022 conference in Cardiff in September 2022.

Relevant Publications

2025

• Canelas-Pais, M., Almeida, J. C., Araujo, S. M., Rafael, F. M., Cruz-Correia, R., & Rodrigues, P. P. (2025). Artificial intelligence in healthcare (Chapter 9, Section 4: AI and education in healthcare). In A. Pais, C. Vitorino, S. Nunes, & T. Cova (Eds.), Artificial intelligence for drug product lifecycle applications (pp. 260-264). Academic Press. 10.1016/B978-0-323-91819-0.00009-9  Link

2024

• Magalhães Araujo S, Cruz-Correia R. Incorporating ChatGPT in Medical Informatics Education: Mixed Methods Study on Student Perceptions and Experiential Integration Proposals. JMIR Med Educ 2024;10:e51151. doi: 10.2196/51151 Link
• Grosjean J, Benis A, Dufour JC, Lejeune É, Disson F, Dahamna B, Cieslik H, Léguillon R, Faure M, Dufour F, Staccini P, Darmoni SJ. Sharing Digital Health Educational Resources in a One-Stop Shop Portal: Tutorial on the Catalog and Index of Digital Health Teaching Resources (CIDHR) Semantic Search Engine. JMIR Med Educ. 2024 Mar 4;10:e48393. doi: 10.2196/48393. PMID: 38437007; PMCID: PMC10949124. Link
• Babitsch B, Pöche-Guckelberger I, Maske D, Egbert N, Hüber UH. Concepts and Implementation of Digital Problem-Based Learning in Health- Related Study Programmes: A Scoping Review. Educ Med J. 2024 December;16(4):1-17. Link
• Richter J, Katzensteiner M, Egbert N, Rühlicke S, Elgert L, Krefting D, Hübner U, Bott OJ. Approaching Heterogenous Target Groups in Digital Learning Environments – Course Evaluation and Revision. IEEE German Education Conference GECon 2024 Proceedings. Link
• Egbert N, Haukkakallio T, Hüsers J, Phipps L, Tietze M, Vieira Marques P, Hübner U (2024) Information in Healthcare – From Data to Knowledge: Improving Data Literacy Competencies. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2024;315:160-164. doi:10.3233/SHTI240126. Link
• Hübner UH, Vieira-Marques P, Hüsers J, Haukkakallio T, Ikonen J, Egbert N, Almeida J, Babitsch B, Kinnunen UM, Correia R, Saranto K. Lessons Learned from an Interprofessional European Summer School in Health Informatics. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2024 Jan 25;310:1171-1175. doi: 10.3233/SHTI231149. Link

2023

• Costa PD, Almeida J, Araujo SM, Alves P, Cruz-Correia R, Saranto K, Mantas J. Biomedical and health informatics teaching in Portugal: Current status. Heliyon. 2023 Mar 14;9(3):e14163. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14163. Erratum in: Heliyon. 2023 May 18;9(5):e16208. PMID: 36967900; PMCID: PMC10034451. Link
• Bott OJ, Berger U, Egbert N, Herrmann C, Schneider B, Sellemann B, Spreckelsen C, Strahwald B, Varghese J, Winter A. On the Effective Dissemination and Use of Learning Objectives Catalog for Health Informatics Curricula Development. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2023;302,438-442. doi:10.3233/SHTI230168. Link

2022

• Mantas J, Hasman A, Haux R. Achievements, Milestones and Challenges in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Stud Health Technol Inform 2022;300: 1-225. The book presents the 17 accepted papers of the International Symposium on Achievements, Milestones, and Challenges in Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI), held in Athens, Greece, on 29 October 2022. doi: 10.3233/SHTI300 Link 
• Darmoni S, Benis A, Lejeune E, Disson F, Dahamna B, Weber P, Staccini P, Grosjean J. Digital Health Multilingual Ontology to Index Teaching Resources. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2022 Aug 31;298:19-23. doi: 10.3233/SHTI220900. PMID: 36073449. Link
• Hübner U, Saranto K, Vieia-Marques P, Kinnunen UM, Egbert N, Babitsch B, Kalthoff D, Cardosa A, Sousa P, Hüsers J, Padilha M, Mannavaara P, Jokinen T, Mansholt H, Correia R, Morawski TS, Wilson GM, Ball MJ. The eHealth4all@eu Pipeline of Course Development: TIGER Recommendations in Action. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2022;290:1126-1127. doi: 10.3233/SHTI220300. Link
• Egbert N, Babitsch B, Hübner U. Continuing Education of Nurses inpatient Handovers: Development and Evaluation of a Digitally Enabled Problem-Based Learning Course. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2022 Jan 14;289:188-191. doi:10.3233/SHTI210891. Link
• Hübner UH, Wilson GM, Shaw Morawski, T Ball MJ. Nursing Informatics: A Health Informatics, Interprofessional and Global Perspective, 5th Edition, Springer Nature, 2022. Link

2021

• Charalampidou M, Zoulias E, Mantas J. Evaluation of a Health Informatics Postgraduate Program. Stud Health Technol Inform 2021;281: 1021-1022. doi: 10.3233/SHTI210336. Link

 

If you want to become a member of the EDU Working Group, please contact with the Chair of the Working Group