Core content for the subspecialty of clinical informatics

The Core Content for Clinical Informatics for a medical subspecialty defines the boundaries of the discipline and informs the Program Requirements for Fellowship Education. Program Requirements identify the knowledge and skills that must be mastered through the course of fellowship training and specify accreditation requirements for training programs. The American Board of Medical Specialties considers these two documents along with other requirements and factors when deciding whether to establish a new medical subspecialty. The Core Content for Clinical Informatics is the result of a two-year national development process initiated by the American Medical Informatics Association and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Core Content includes four major categories: fundamentals, clinical decision making and care process improvement, health information systems, and leadership and management of change. In November 2008, the AMIA Board of Directors approved both the Core Content and Program Requirements for clinical informatics.