The recent post by Keith Boone suggesting that healthcare information topics should be taught in schools is part of a wider recognition that healthcare IT is far too insular. We certainly do need to make healthcare information topics available in schools - partly because it's useful stuff to understand, and partly because it's interesting and challenging.
Another way of doing this that I have been looking at is joining healthcare IT project outreach activities with education, providing material for existing school courses. The idea would be to provide "background" material for exercises and coursework that could be used in existing lessons. What is clear is that the benefits would flow in both directions - more interesting materials for schools, and better public engagement by the healthcare services. The background material may not be used directly in the classroom, but could be taken home and shared with the family - this is a well established way to get effective public information out.
By Charlie McCay