Health Informatics will focus on preparing much needed professionals for rapidly ageing global society who will be working in the fields of biomedical engineering, welfare technologies, who will be designing and managing e-health systems. The programme is based on expertise of both university's professionals, and the students will be involved in research in the fields of biomedical engineering, smart environments and e-health which is being undertaken together with partners across the globe.
According to preliminary data provided by European Commission, in 2025 the number of Europeans over 65 will increase by 70 percent. Therefore, along with new therapeutic and preventive methods, a need of new technologies and innovations in health care is emphasised. The need, which can only be fulfilled if scientists and researchers will work together across disciplines and will share their knowledge and experience.
"Information technologies are integral part of a health care system: from registration office to the operating room, and their usage in medicine has been expanding rapidly in the last couple of decades", says professor Egidijus Kazanavičius, who is leading the Health Informatics study programme from KTU's side.
Kazanavičius, who is also Head of Centre of Real Time Computer Systems, is convinced that the joint programme of two Kaunas universities is a timely answer to societal challenges. Prepared health informatics professionals will be of high demand in the labour market: we are already living in the world which needs to manage vast amounts of medical data, to analyse increasingly complicated diagnostic information.
Informatics "Upgraded"
According to the description of Health Informatics study programme, informatics will comprise 74 % and biomedical sciences 26 % of study curriculum. However, the formal division of different modules as belonging to informatics or medicine would not be quite right, as some of them will be taught jointly by the experts from the two universities.
"Informatics, who will be creating health programmes and work with their evaluation need to understand physiological parameters. Therefore, health informatics students will be taught essentials of anatomy, physiology, biophysics, they will get basic knowledge on health care system", says professor Giedrius Vanagas, leading the programme on behalf of LSMU.
According to him, the biggest challenge for both students and professors will be to understand each other, as an informatics knows how to create a system, but is not familiar with the data, and a medical professional knows what is needed, but is unaware of what can be created.
The creators of the new programme are convinced that health informatics professionals will be much more popular in labour market than "traditional" information technology graduates as their specialisation will make them stand out.
The New Programme Created on the Basis of Long Collaboration
Kazanavičius, today working on the projects of smart environment and health monitoring, which involve tiny GPS devices for Alzheimer patients, or mini computers, monitoring body parameters of people under physical stress or of vulnerable health has been collaborating with medical professionals for years.
"My first research in this field was undertaken in the clinics of neurosurgery 20 years ago", says Kazanavičius. Head of KTU's Centre of Real Time Computer Systems admits that he first gained understanding of medical problems through mathematics and algorithms.
Today all KTU Santaka Valley research institutes are carrying out joint projects with LSMU. Non-invasive intracranial pressure meter, innovative methods for early cancer diagnosis, antibacterial materials is only a fraction of ideas that have already became innovative technologies.
Arminas Ragauskas, Head of KTU's Health Telematics Science Institute and Arūnas Lukoševičius, Head of KTU's Biomedical Engineering Institute are among the professors who will be teaching at the new study programme.
The Best Laboratories in the Baltics for KTU Students
The creators of the new study programme emphasise that Health Informatics students will be able to use state-of-the-art research facilities of open access R&D Santaka Valley.
"Moreover, in September we are opening a new Creativity Lab funded by the US company's Intermedix headquarters in Lithuania. The students will create software and computer systems while participating in actual research projects", says Kazanavičius, emphasising the fact that Health Informatics studies are based on scientific research.
