Beginning this fall, EMRA’s Technology, Telehealth, and Informatics (TTI) Committee will host quarterly clinical informatics workshops with ACEP’s Informatics Section leadership.
As a pre-launch introduction to these workshops, we spoke with Carrie Baker, DO, MS, chair of ACEP’s Informatics Section and Director of Medical Informatics Education and Innovation at Kettering Health. She shared how these workshops will help enhance knowledge and expertise in clinical informatics for residents, fellows, and medical students.
EMRA TTI Committee: How can a clinical informatics curriculum, and specifically the upcoming workshops, benefit residents and medical students?
Dr. Baker: Residents and medical students will learn tools that they can apply during their career to make improvements to patient care and their own efficiency. The workshops will provide instruction on fundamental concepts in clinical informatics, techniques to improve care delivery and patient outcomes (such as clinical decision support tools), data analytics, leadership skills, and project management basics. Attendees will develop a project that they may then implement at their training sites, if approved by their institutional leadership.
EMRA TTI: How will the curriculum for the workshops be structured?
Dr. Baker: The curriculum is broken down into four parts based on the American Board of Preventive Medicine Clinical Informatics Content. Namely, the workshops will emphasize fundamental knowledge of clinical informatics, care delivery improvement and outcomes, enterprise information systems knowledge, data governance and analytics, and leadership development.
EMRA TTI: What types of projects can attendees plan to develop over the course of the workshops?
Dr. Baker: Projects will be developed based on the individual interest of each workshop attendee. Whether you have a specific project in mind or are seeking more guidance, the workshop leadership team will help support and craft your project of interest. Broadly, such project ideas include quality improvement, order sets, clinical decision support, process improvement, improved efficiency, and identification of data elements for quality and research.
EMRA TTI: What career opportunities are available to those with clinical informatics training?
Dr. Baker: Clinical informaticists work in a variety of areas, including academics, quality improvement, physician adviserships, utilization review, hospital leadership, and technology startups. Examples include those found online, such as on American Medical Informatics Association’s jobs site. Those with an interest in hospital leadership, for instance, may pursue roles as a chief medical information officer, chief medical officer, or medical director of informatics. Others may choose to work for vendors like Epic, Cerner, and Nuance. There are also an increasing number of opportunities available at technology startups, both in the private sector and through innovation centers at academic institutions across the country.
EMRA TTI: Will there be mentorship opportunities available to workshop attendees?
Dr. Baker: Yes! The workshop presenters are leaders of ACEP’s Section for EM Informatics who want to support EMRA’s members so that EM physicians-in-training can use informatics tools to make improvements in emergency medicine. We welcome and encourage those who are interested in informatics to continue working with us. You may also further your informatics knowledge through the 10x10 program at Oregon Health & Science University. If there is interest, we can set up a group forum in Basecamp. Additionally, I am happy to connect directly at Carrie.Baker@ketteringhealth.org. Just be sure to put “EM Informatics” in the subject line.
Be on the lookout for more information on Twitter and Basecamp regarding the workshops, and reach out to EMRA’s TTI Committee with any questions at EMRAInformatics@emra.org.