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CC BY 4.0 · ACI open 2023; 07(02): e79-e86
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1775971
Case Report

Curriculum for Early Exposure to Clinical Informatics and Data Science for Noninformatics Trainees to Promote Interest and Inclusion in Informatics

Akshay Ravi
1   Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
,
Benjamin Weia
1   Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
,
Matthew Sakumoto
1   Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
2   Department of Medicine, Sutter Health, San Francisco, California, United States
,
Aris Oates
3   Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
,
Xinran Liu
1   Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
› Author Affiliations Funding None declared.
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Abstract

Background Curricula aimed at increasing exposure to informatics and practical data analytics among medical trainees could increase their effectiveness in clinical research, quality improvement, and clinical operations.

Objectives The Clinical Informatics Data Science (CI-DS) pathway is a cross-disciplinary curriculum aimed at improving informatics exposure among medical trainees. We describe the development of this novel curriculum, the inaugural cohort, and lessons learned.

Methods The CI-DS pathway is framed around upfront informatics didactics followed by a longitudinal, experiential training focused on mentorship, clinical data extraction/machine learning, and health technology governance. The curriculum was evaluated based on pre- and postpathway surveys completed by learners and logs of the elective activities selected by learners.

Results The CI-DS pathway attracted 19 learners across 12 medical subspecialties, from medical students to fellows. Baseline surveys showed limited exposure to informatics across learners. The top three longitudinal activities completed were participating in electronic health record (EHR) governance meetings, data science supplemental courses, and designated mentorship meetings. Comparison of baseline with postpathway surveys demonstrated significant improvements in learner self-reported confidence in appraising an EHR modification ticket, accessing UCSF's deidentified data, exploring a database with basic structured query language (SQL), extracting data using SQL, and interpreting machine learning models.

Conclusion An early exposure curriculum in clinical informatics with training in data extraction and governance can successfully recruit a diverse array of learners and improve confidence in practical informatics skills. We reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of this curriculum, and summarize the lessons learned to guide others in creating similar curricula for noninformatics clinicians.

Keywords

medical informatics - education - medical - data science - mentorship - diversity - equity - inclusion

Protection of Human and Animal Subjects

The study was performed in compliance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects and was reviewed and exempted by the UCSF Institutional Review Board.




Publication History

Received: 30 March 2023

Accepted: 16 August 2023

Article published online:
01 November 2023

© 2023. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Georg Thieme Verlag KG
Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany

 

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