The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has released a white paper detailing the results of its first workforce practice analysis for clinical informatics subspecialty diplomates.
To date, more than 1,800 physicians have been certified in the Clinical Informatics Subspecialty (CIS) since its establishment in 2011. These board-certified physicians are known as diplomates. The survey population included 1,675 diplomates and garnered an 18.8 percent response rate. The 313 physician respondents had an average of 13.6 years of clinical informatics experience representing 18 different primary board specialties.
The AMIA survey explored the core applied informatics-related domains, tasks and knowledge for clinical informatics subspecialty practice. The practice analysis provides data that will enable the American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) CIS examination for the subspecialty to align with current practice. The survey results will also inform the program requirements for more than 20 clinical informatics fellowship programs. AMIA conducted the CIS practice analysis in collaboration with ABPM and with the support of the American Board of Pathology (ABPath).
Physicians who practice clinical informatics analyze, design, implement, and evaluate information systems to enhance individual and population health outcomes, improve patient care, and strengthen the clinician-patient relationship. Significant developments in CIS practice and health care delivery have occurred in the past decade, necessitating an update to the original clinical informatics core content requirements published in 2009, most notably, the increase in and effective utilization of health data generated by electronic health records.
The white paper, “Domains, tasks, and knowledge for clinical informatics subspecialty practice: results of a practice analysis” is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMIA) and was presented last week at the AMIA 2019 Clinical Informatics Conference in Atlanta.
“Recognition of the unique set of knowledge and skills associated with clinical/health informatics practice will create opportunities and raise expectations for informatics professionals,” noted Douglas B. Fridsma, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of AMIA, in an accompanying editorial. “Educational programs will have a clearer sense of what their graduates need to be prepared to do upon graduation … (T)hose interested in informatics careers will have a more complete roadmap as it relates to professional opportunities,”
