The Process-Oriented Implications in the Development of Health Informatics Curriculum for Teaching and Learning

The healthcare environment is complex and delicate in terms of its activities and processes. Some of the activities include storage, retrieval, use, and management of individual and group patient's record and clinical data. As such, healthcare informatician needs to be equipped with diverse knowledge and skills for better healthcare services deliver, planning and management. This is attributed to the complexity of developing the curriculum. Also, the comprehension of the informatics curriculum is critical for accreditation purposes. Thus, this research paper focuses on the development of curriculum at institutions of higher learning, to examine and understand the implications of the processes that are involved in health informatics, for academic purposes. The curriculum is purposely to promote, practice and transfer of technological knowledge and skills on health informatics. This is an applied research that was carried out at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. The study employed different approaches in the design, and collection of empirical data. Based on the interactive nature amongst stakeholders, the interpretive method was employed in the data analysis, to examine how the health informatics curriculum is developed for undergraduate level programmes.