Having just returned from ADA’s 2010 Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo in Boston, I have been reflecting on the great success of the first nutrition-focused 10x10 introductory course in biomedical informatics.  In case you haven’t heard the term before, the name, 10x10, comes from the intent to train 10,000 professionals on informatics by the year 2010.  It’s an on-line introductory course in informatics that culminates in an in-person session at the end of the course.  This first AMIA-OHSU-ADA 10x10 began in June of this year with 42 RDs and DTRs enrolled.  The instructor was William Hersh, MD, Chair of the Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University.  Every other week during the past five months, these students were introduced to units that covered a variety of informatics topics – from security/privacy to electronic health records to information retrieval and evidence-based medicine – and participating in on-line discussion forums related to specific unit topics as well as for general discussion purposes.  Another requirement of the course is to complete a short project that features a workplace problem with an informatics-related solution.  Lindsey Hoggle, MS, RD, PMP and I served as co-instructors for the 10x10 and we were quite pleased with the quality of the students’ papers, some of which we think could be submitted to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association for publication in the Topics of Professional Interest section.

    When Elaine Ayres (Chair of ADA’s Nutrition Informatics Committee), Lindsey, & I first approached Dr. Hersh about having a nutrition-focused 10x10, we were unsure of the response we would receive or whether we would have enough enrollees to break even.  Based on the response to this first offering, we feel confident that ADA will continue to offer 10x10 to its members in the coming year.  We want to extend our thanks to ADA staff who made this possible.