A globally agreed well structured framework representing the health informatics discipline's body of knowledge is yet to emerge. Considerable progress has been made towards describing this over the fifty or so years of the discipline's evolution. This contribution explains the need for such a structured body of knowledge from an educational and workforce capacity building perspective. Some examples of how education and training has been provided to date by a few key stakeholders/leaders are given and critical reviews of guideline and competency developments and their applications are presented. This is followed by an explanation of the need for linking health informatics research with education, learning and training strategies and desired future directions to overcome the identified health workforce knowledge and skills gaps are explored. Given the increasingly important role of health IT in health care, and the significant investment being made into Health IT systems and infrastructure, it is illogical not to seriously invest in health workforce capacity building.