As the healthcare workforce grapples with using new technologies proliferating the market, medical schools are taking steps to make sure those entering the industry are prepared for new innovation.
Some courses schools are taking on include real-life exercise that make use of tech, according to an article at the Wall Street Journal.
One example is a course at New York University School of Medicine on a database that tracks hospital admissions and charges in the state. The class allows students to talk about price differences for procedures throughout New York.
"This isn't a textbook exercise. This is real life and students love it," Marc Triola, NYU's associate dean for educational informatics, tells WSJ.
Many schools are still teaching in traditional ways, and medical educators say it is time to innovate.
"The reality is that most medical schools are teaching the same way they did one hundred years ago," Wyatt Decker, chief executive of the Mayo Clinic's operations in Arizona, tells WSJ. "It's time to blow up that model and ask, 'How do we want to train tomorrow's doctors?'"
In addition to medical classes like the one at NYU, colleges and universities also are offering degrees and certificates in health information technology. The courses focus on the most current trends in healthcare IT--from health IT policy to data analytics. They offer students the opportunity to begin work as healthcare IT professionals or to take their careers to a new level, FierceHealthIT previously reported.
And organizations including the American Medical Association also are creating initiatives to further curriculum. The AMA developed an initiative called Accelerating Change in Medical Education to give $1 million to 11 schools to help fund novel programs, according to the article.
Even at the high school level, students are gaining a better understanding of practices used in health IT.
Rural hospitals in Kansas are turning to health information management professionals to start the medical coding credentialing process early on--before students even get their high school diplomas.
To learn more:
- read the WSJ article