Comparison of Three Internship Training Sites for an Undergraduate Health Information Management Program in Saudi Arabia

• Published in: Healthcare informatics research Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 233 - 237
• Main Authors: Bah, Sulaiman, Alanzi, Turki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea (South) Korean Society of Medical Informatics 01.07.2017; The Korean Society of Medical Informatics; 대한의료정보학회
• Subjects: Case Report; electronic health records; health information management; health information systems; internship and residency; tertiary care centers; 예방의학; Tertiary Care Centers; Internship and Residency; Health Information Systems; Electronic Health Records; Health Information Management
• ISSN: 2093-3681; 2093-369X
• DOI: 10.4258/hir.2017.23.3.233

While internship training is well established for medical records and for healthcare quality improvement, it is not quite so for training related to IT/health informatics. A comparison was made on the hospital-based IT/health informatics internship training received by students completing their training at the Imam AbdulRahman Bin Faisal University (IAU) in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The three hospitals studied all have the Joint Commission International accreditation and advanced Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. Over the period from 2011 to 2015, interns from the IAU prepared 120 reports based on their training at these three hospitals. Data abstraction was done on the internship reports, and the results were summarized and interpreted. The study found wide differences in the training received at these hospitals. The main reason for the differences is whether or not the EHR system used in the hospital was a commercial one or developed in-house. The hospital that had developed its own EHR system made more use of health information management interns during their IT rotation in comparison to hospitals which had adopted commercial EHR systems. Recommendations are made of both local relevance and of international relevance.