Informatics
Medical Education in the 21st Century

by Krister Friday

To practice medicine in the twenty-first century medical students . . . must be given strong grounding in the use of computer technology to manage information, support patient care decisions, select treatments, and develop their abilities as life-long learners.
  -- Association of American Medical Colleges, 1992  
   

Everybody agrees that medical schools and medical education will look different in the 21st century. They will have to — responding as they must to the rapid social, economic, and technological changes in the healthcare profession.

"Medical students who learn the skills to effectively use computers to access and manage information will have a great advantage over those who do not," explains John Greene, DO, associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. The question is, how can medical schools best prepare their students and faculty for the profession as it will exist in the coming decades?

Dr. Greene and Mark Notman, PhD, executive director of Educational Technology and assistant professor of osteopathic surgical specialties, would rather not leave this preparation to chance.

 
 

For some time medical educators have recognized the need to incorporate technology-based information management skills — informatics — into core medical curricula. To address this need, Drs. Notman and Greene are spearheading an effort to make sure that MSUCOM will meet the technological needs of the DOs who will graduate and practice medicine in the information age.

The two insist that informatics is not merely teaching people how to use computers, but is instead part of a larger approach to effective information management in the areas of patient care, research, and administration. According to Dr. Notman, informatics is using technology and the information it puts at one’s fingertips in the context of medical problem-solving and decision-making. Dr. Notman considers this information and technology integral to the practice of medicine and not merely supplementary to it. Informatics should become, therefore, a standard part of medical education at MSUCOM.
 

After some preliminary conversations with Dean Jacobs in early 2000, Drs. Notman and Greene agreed to develop a blueprint for a medical informatics curriculum at MSUCOM.

Currently, the two lead a multidisciplinary college task force charged with assessing the college’s needs and capabilities, establishing priorities, and developing a timeline for implementing the informatics initiative. Task force members include Bruce Friedman, Terry Hagen, Mark Hodgins, Paulette Lovell, Tom Mohr, Debbie Porter, Sashi Reddy, and John Thornburg.

Other informatics-related activities underway include exploratory research in the use of handheld computers among Lansing-based third-year students in the Primary Care Ambulatory Clerkship, a survey of all fourth-year students assessing their use of handhelds, increased Web-based instruction and dissemination of course information using Blackboard’s CourseInfo and other tools, and on-going development of new computer-related resources in current courses.

The informatics initiative will also involve assessing student competencies as part of their orientation and providing training, where necessary, so all students have base-line skills upon matriculation. In addition, the informatics initiative will support faculty and course development activities and establish a development laboratory.

Drs. Greene and Notman explain that college efforts will not involve an overhaul of the existing curriculum but will instead integrate with current course goals and objectives. "Ideally, we would like to incorporate medical informatics into all four years of our curriculum," Dr. Greene explains. As for their initial assessment of the college’s potential, they are optimistic. "The interest in informatics is increasing and there are a lot of practices at the college we can build on," Dr. Notman explains, pointing to some 23 web-based modules already in use within the curriculum.