While implementing one of these databases might be beneficial for some, they are sophisticated enough that we feel it would require a dedicated informatics specialist to replicate them.
Content of the test was developed hand in hand with Web site designers, with close cooperation between each specialist of the team (medical educators, medical informatics specialist, and research engineer).
Susan L Teitelbaum (Project Director), Gertrud S Berkowitz (Epidemiologist), Xiaolin Liang (Informatics Specialist), Monica Katyal (Project Coordinator), and Stephanie Skoler (Project Coordinator) (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA); Daniela Seminara (Program Officer) (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA).
Coordinating Center: Memorial Sloan-Kettering CaNew Yorkter (NYw York, NY, USA) Jonine L Bernstein, PhD (WECARE Study PI), Xiaolin Liang, MD, MS (Informatics Specialist), Abigail Wolitzer, MSPH (Project Director); National Cancer Institute (Bethesda, MD, USA) Daniela Seminara, PhD, MPH (Program Officer).
Coordinating Center Mount Sinai School of Medicinee): Susan L Teitelbaum, PhD (Project Director); Gertrud S Berkowitz, PhD (Epidemiologist); Xiaolin Liang, MD, MS (Informatics Specialist); Monica Katyal, MPH (Project Coordinator); Stephanie Skoler, MPH (Project Coordinator); Brooke Levinson, MPH (Project Coordinator); National Cancer Institute: Daniela Seminara, PhD, MPH (Program Officer).
We used a strategy developed with a health informatics specialist (see web extra on bmj.com) to search Ovid Medline (1948 to 7 May 2011), Embase (1980 to 7 May 2011), and the Cochrane central register of controlled trials (1993 to 7 May 2011).
Such translators, known as "health informatics specialists," typically have expertise in medical records and claims, clinical care and programming.
Health informatics specialists usually start as computer programmers or as doctors, nurses, pharmacists or health record administrators.
The federal government's economic stimulus package is dedicating $19 billion to speeding the adoption of electronic health records, so demand for health informatics specialists is skyrocketing.
Furthermore, the professional skills of informatics specialists go largely unrecognised, she lamented: "If we don't expect our information and IT specialists to be appropriately qualified, accredited and to keep up-to date professionally, then we are creating problems for service users and for the system as a whole".
The shortage of health informatics specialists and IT professionals is another obstacle to e-health projects [2].
