First in the Country-
UT-Houston's New School of Health Information Sciences

At a recent meeting of The University of Texas System Board of Regents, the name of The University of Texas School of Allied Health Sciences at Houston was changed to the School of Health Information Sciences. The school is the first multidisciplinary, interinstitutional graduate program in health informatics in the country.

In the late 1990s, when the focus of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston was on graduate education with an increased emphasis on health care research and innovation, existing programs in the School of Allied Health Sciences closed. The revamped school's focus became health informatics. Currently, there are 50 students in the master's program and four in the new doctoral program.

On March 1, Dr. Doris L. Ross, who oversaw the transformation as dean pro-tem, was appointed dean.

In announcing her appointment, UT-Houston President Dr. James T. Willerson said, "You have earned my respect and the admiration of our colleagues as you have skillfully guided the transition of the previous School of Allied Health Sciences into an already impressive and successful School of Health Information Sciences. The success of the school is a great tribute to you and your leadership. I congratulate you and pledge my support for continuing development of the School of Health Information Sciences."

"The new name certainly is more descriptive of what we are about," Dr. Ross said. "Informatics is really what we do in our teaching, our training of students and our research. It is based on electronic information systems and their use in clinical health care and computational biomedicine."

"We are developing online courses for the master's program," Dr. Ross continued, "and one day we will have the complete informatics course on the Web. We hope to open the program to students outside the Health Science Center in September."

"The school's health informatics program is unique in the United States," said Dr. Jack W. Smith, chair of and professor in the department. "It is multidisciplinary and interinstitutional, with students and faculty from all areas of health care, biology, sociology, public health, engineering and computer science. It is important to have a mixture in order to cross-fertilize."

This diversity of backgrounds encourages the students' openness to different approaches to problem solving, Dr. Ross said.

"Our fundamental philosophy is to allow them to interact, give them as much freedom as we possibly can and from that, marvelous things can happen," she said.

Research at the school should broaden the understanding of health education and technology.

"The transfer of information is what education really is," Dr. Ross said. "Some of our researchers study how best to use modern technology in the transmission of knowledge in education in its broadest sense."

In the past, education has been driven by learning theories that may or may not have been based on scientific data, Dr. Smith said.

"Now, we are using technology to find justification for new learning theories, looking at human factors, motivational theory, and behavioral change theory. We can then use what we know to create environments in which health care professionals, staff and consumers will receive information in a form that is most usable for their needs and modes of learning," he said.

Health care institutions and doctors' offices house untold numbers of paper records about patients' health. But all of the information in the world is useless unless the information can be captured and retrieved.

"We are looking at cognitive, psychological, sociological and ergonomic factors," Dr. Smith said.

For example, with the overwhelming growth in electronic technology, people are receiving more and more information on monitors.

"Now, we have infinite scrolling on the monitor," said Dr. James P. Turley, vice chair, associate professor and director of educational programs in health informatics. "In many cases," he said, "we can no longer use positional memory to remember things, such as, `It was in the first section of today's paper at the top of a left-hand page near an ad for scooters.' We need to adopt new techniques to assist with memory."

While the school's focus is on health information - which U. S. News & World Report states is the most "rapidly growing field in the health care area" - much of its research is applicable in other fields. For instance, research projects are ongoing with NASA's Johnson Space Center on the flight surgeon's console and on evidence-based and Web-based learning.

"It's a credit to the leaders of UT-Houston," Dr. Smith said. "They had the foresight and vision to try the program in health informatics. It's important to note that it was the right vision, and that it's succeeding. A significant number of companies or employers now sponsor students who wish to enroll in our degree programs."

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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