Giving context to health informatics

The Department of Health and the General Medical Council agree that information systems and the application of health informatics are crucial to improving quality of patient care. Clinical Information Systems (CIS) are now firmly embedded in clinical practice: essential for facilitating communication between multidisciplinary teams and enabling coherent long term care for patients. In order to ensure medical students’ skills were fit for purpose when qualifying, changes needed to be reflected in the curriculum. The ‘Clinical Information Systems for Patient Care’ (CIS4PC) project was developed at Leeds using TPP SystmOne (used widely in West Yorkshire GP practices). Leeds was the first University to incorporate a ‘live’ CIS into the classroom as part of the students’ preparation for clinical placements. Teaching is delivered through a combined clinical and informatics approach, using experiential learning for students to explore and understand how CISs support clinical care, quality monitoring, patient safety and communication within the safety of a classroom environment. Through interactive role-play using the CIS, students cover topics including information governance, record keeping, consultations, decision support and disease management. Key learning outcomes are augmented with opportunities for students to experience how technology can benefit them as future practitioners and their patients. The session will include how we worked together to integrate health informatics and the technology into clinical teaching. Delegates will also be able to experience some of the hands-on session content for themselves.