This presentation shows our project that aims to provide a guide for Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS) to develop a national licensing and credentialing system for health informatics (HI) professionals in Saudi Arabia.

1. Scoping the Health Informatics Profession
The Saudi Health Informatics
Competency Framework
Dr. Manal Almalki
Vice-Dean for Faculty of Public
Health & Tropical Medicine
Jazan University

2. Disclaimer
• Since December 2017, the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties has assigned a
National Health Informatics Advisory Committee
• Competencies framework working group was among the working groups that
focuses on building this presented work.
• This work has been funded and produced by the Saudi Commission for Health
Specialties.

3. WHY SHOULD WE CARE?!
The struggle of the newly introduced and changing specialty!

4. Rationale
Essential in Health Teams
Promote collaboration
between healthcare
professionals and HI
professionals in the diverse
area of healthcare practice
Professionalism
Define clearly the core
body of knowledge and
competencies
underpinning the HI
discipline.
Coherent Education
Help in designing
educational and training
programs in the field of
Health Informatics.
Pros. Performance
Set clear expectations of
professionals’
performance in the
workplace.

5. Competencies framework
working group
Our Goal
To provide a guide for Saudi Commission for
Health Specialties (SCFHS) to develop a
national licensing and credentialing
protocol for health informatics (HI)
professionals in Saudi Arabia.

6. Project Elements
Focused The working group has been tasked to deliver key deliverables, as follows:
01
Literature
Review
02
Online
Survey
03
Focus
Groups
Expert Panel Meetings*

7. Phase 1
Literature
Review
Over 500 scientific and
industrial articles/reports
were browsed
Inclusion
Of the 116 articles that
were selected
20 were included for
analysis

8. Results from Phase 1
6 Domains
23 Sub-domains
152 Competencies
# Core HI Skills
Information
Comm. &
Tech.
Health
Sciences
Data Science
Education &
Research
Mgmt &
Administratio
n
Sub-
domain
6 5 4 2 2 4
Compete
ncies
35 39 18 11 24 28
±17 Expert Panel Discussions

9. Preliminary Saudi
Health Informatics
Competency
Framework

10. Domain (6) Subdomains (23)
Administration/Management 1- Project and Change Management
2- Quality Management
3- Strategic Planning and Risk Management
4- Resources Management (Human, IT, Capital, ect.)
ICT 5- Basic Computer Literacy
6- Basic Concepts and Components of Information Technology.
7- Systems Design and Testing
8- Information System Security
9- IT Support, Maintenance and Upgrade Process
Health 10- Basic Clinical/Medical Knowledge
11- Medical Terminology
12- Health Care Systems
13- Health-Related Policy and Regulations
Data Science 14- Quantitative Analysis and Statistical Knowledge
15- Knowledge Management and Representation
Education, Training and
Research
16- Education and Training
17- Research
Health Informatics Core Skills 18- Basic Theories and Concepts in HI
19- HI Standards and Interoperability
20- Areas of Specialisations in HI
21- Information Systems in Health Care
22- Clinical Data Documentation and Management
23- Legal, Ethical, and Social Aspects of Health

11. Phase 2
Online Survey
24 Experts
participated
Rating/Localization
Domain
Total per
domain
%
Very important
/required*
Health Informatics Core Skills 35 57% 20
ICT 39 36% 14
Health Sciences 15 20% 3
Data Science 11 0% 0
Education, Training and Research 24 16% 4
Administration/Management 28 60% 17
Total per rating category 152 38% 58

12. Phase 3
Focus Group
A heterogenous group
of 14 experts representing
business and academia.
Building consensus on
cut-off results.

13. Results from Phase 3
Amendments in
domains/subdomains
names were done
#
Core
Principles
Information
Comm. &
Tech.
Health
Sciences
Health Data
Analytics
Education &
Research
Leadership &
Management
Sub-
domain
5 5 4 2 2 4
Compete
ncies
23 28 13 6 7 15
Final revision
of the framework

14. Saudi Health Informatics
Competency Framework v1.0

15. International competency
frameworks used in this work
Competency Framework Year of Foundation
IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association) 2010
AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association Medical) 2012
Digital Health Canada, formerly known as COACH 2012
The Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) 2013
AMIA and CAHIIM 2016

16. Domains IMIA AMIA COACH CHIA
AMIA &
CAHIM
SHICF**
Core Principles ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓#
Information and
Communication
Technology
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Health Sciences ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Health Data Analytics ✓+ ✓* ✓
Education & Research ✓+ ✓* ✓
Leadership and
Management
✓ ✓ ✓
Different levels of
competency
YES
1: IT user
2: HBI
specialist
No No YES
1: Knowledge
2:
Comprehension
3: Application
4: Analysis
No YES
1. Remember
2. Understand
3. Apply
4. Analyse
5. Evaluate
6. Create
Comparative analysis of domains between
international competency frameworks and our work
+ In the AMIA, fundamental scientific skills domain is concerned with aspects related to education and research domain. Also, fundamental knowledge sub-domain is concerned
with aspects related to data science domain.
* The competencies related to these domains are incorporated across all the CHIA streams.
# The Health Informatics stream is named the Core Principles in the Saudi competency framework.
SHICF** refers to the Saudi Health Informatics Competency Framework

17. SHICF v1.0
– Work on progress, to be published soon.
– Provide a guide for Saudi Commission for Health
Specialties (SCFHS) to develop a national licensing and
credentialing protocol for health informatics (HI)
professionals in Saudi Arabia.

18. Next Steps…
– Utilization of the initial framework to define the Health
Informatics Profession in Saudi Arabia.
– Utilization of the initial competency framework to
refine the Health Informatics academic programs of
local educational institutions.
– Offer the room for iterative changes/development,
within the local and/GCC communities.

19. Thank you
Dr. Manal Almalki
Vice-Dean for Faculty of Public
Health & Tropical Medicine
Jazan University