Today the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) announced the inaugural diplomate class of health informatics professionals bearing the credential AMIA Certified Health Informatics Professional (ACHIP). Frank Liao, director of applied data science at UW Health and adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine, was among a group of fewer than 100 individuals from across the country in interdisciplinary fields to bear the designation and represent an evolution in the health informatics field with the introduction of a certification designed to serve the interprofessional health informatics community.
The creation of the new AMIA Health Informatics Certification (AHIC)—which all ACHIP diplomates have achieved—standardizes expectations for the skills, knowledge and experience of qualified health informatics professionals and provides an immediately recognized credential for organizations hiring informaticians.
The development process for the new certification spanned more than a decade to define the scope of practice, eligibility requirements, and testing for a range of clinicians and professionals in nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, nutrition and public health. “For organizations tackling challenges in HIT governance, patient safety, quality metrics and innovations in population health, bringing highly qualified, certified health informatics professionals to the table is critical to transformation. Whether in practice or research, the ACHIP designation certifies excellence,” said Gretchen Purcell Jackson, MD, PhD, AMIA Board Chair and President.