New Clinical Informatics Program Aims to Prepare Pathologists
The College of American Pathologists (CAP) and the Association for Pathology Informatics (API) have launched a new graduate medical education clinical informatics curriculum.
The curriculum—Pathology Informatics Essentials for Residents (PIER)— is designed to address the educational needs of pathologists in the evolving healthcare landscape, which includes the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHR), spurred in large part by meaningful use and related federal programs. This is changing the way healthcare providers interact with laboratory information. As such, now, more than ever, pathologists need to be well-versed in the field of clinical informatics in order to deliver high quality and cost-effective patient care, according to a CAP news release.
Jointly developed by the three organizations, PIER presents informatics topics identified by leading experts in the field, say CAP officials. It offers key training elements for residency program directors and faculty to implement informatics training, while meeting the milestone requirements outlined by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
PIER is designed for all pathology residents—those specializing in anatomic or clinical pathology, or both. The curriculum exposes residents to information technology in pathology as they participate in their anatomic and/or clinical pathology rotations and residency activities related to management; quality assurance and control; and regulatory and accreditation issues; as well as the daily flow of information into and out of the laboratory and the proper utilization of that information. Each topic includes key outcomes mapped to pathology informatics ACGME milestone levels.
“Information management will continue to play a crucial role in pathology,” said Walter Henricks, M.D., medical director of Pathology Informatics at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and co-leader of the PIER working group. “By developing PIER, we are empowering pathologists in clinical informatics with the knowledge and skill sets necessary to meet the demands of the current and future healthcare environment.”
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