Telehealth and Healthcare (Biomedical) Informatics Specialty Track

Goals: This scholarly track focuses on the area of Biomedical Informatics in Emergency Medicine which encompasses telemedicine/telehealth, simulation, electronic health records, electronic information access and communications. Participants in this track will gain knowledge in the clinical practice of telehealth, regional information systems and health information exchange, simulation, and quality improvement in emergency medicine using information systems. 

Faculty and Staff:

• David Ellis, MD  - Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics
• David Pierce, MD and Jeffrey Myers, DO – Simulation
• Jake Wolfrum  -  Associate Director  898-3789
• Michele Sheehan  -  Assistant to Dr. Ellis  898-5230

Requirements:

• Minimum of 100 hours of “credit” during the residency program
• Each activity will have a predefined credit value based upon amount of effort involved
• The resident must demonstrate steady progress that will be monitored at least biannually, and failure to achieve at least 10 credits in any given semester without an acceptable reason will add 10 credits to the total requirement
  
  
• Active participation in periodic group sessions with selected readings may include  organization and conduct of one journal club on a biomedical informatics topic
  
• Suggested Activities:
• Develop a scholarly project within Simulation, Healthcare Informatics or Telehealth as either a research project, book chapter, simulation case study, review article, etc.
• Present a scholarly project at a national emergency medicine, telemedicine, informatics or healthcare simulation meeting
• Give a presentation at grand rounds on topic area
• Quality improvement project with telemedicine system to improve patient care or patient safety
• Attend advisory committee meetings for the regional health information organization
• Interaction with Hospital Information Systems on quality improvement in ED including timeliness of care, medications, information access, etc.  
• Interaction with the University Practice Plan’s (UB/MD) efforts to establish a multi-specialty telemedicine practice.
• Certification
• One goal for participants is that as they move on through their careers in emergency medicine that they could fill a recognized role and be identified as their group’s “expert” in biomedical informatics. Emergency medicine has teamed with the American Medical Informatics Association’s goal of creating 10,000 clinical informaticians within 10 years. This program is available as AMIA 10x10000 Biomedical Informatics Certification. A local program is offered by the UB School of Medicine’s Certificate Program in Medical-Health Informatics. Residents may wish to explore certification in biomedical informatics through this option.