The American Board of Medical Specialties has formally recognized clinical informatics as a medical subspecialty, MedPage Today reports (Frieden, MedPage Today, 9/23).
The formal recognition comes after a six-year push by advocates of clinical informatics.
Details of Certification
Physicians who are board-certified in any of the 24 primary medical specialties will be able to gain additional certification as medical informaticians (Versel, InformationWeek, 9/23).
ABMS will administer the examination for physicians seeking certification as informaticians.
According to a release from the American Medical Informatics Association, the first clinical informatics exam will be available next fall, and the first certificates will be awarded in early 2013 (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 9/23).
AMIA is preparing materials for online and in-person courses for physicians who wish to take the exam. AMIA said the materials will be ready by spring 2012 (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 9/23).
AMIA President and CEO Edward Shortliffe said clinical informatics is the first subspecialty certification available to any physician who already has received board certification in any primary medical specialty.
The American Board of Preventive Medicine and the American Board of Pathology are joining ABMS as co-sponsors of the subspecialty. Other organizations also could sign on as co-sponsors.
Sponsoring organizations will call on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to approve a fellowship program for the subspecialty, according to InformationWeek (InformationWeek, 9/23).
Role of Clinical Informaticians
According to AMIA, the role of clinical informaticians is to combine knowledge of informatics tools and patient care to:
- Assess and enhance clinical processes;
- Determine the information needs of health care providers and patients; and
- Continually work to improve clinical information systems, such as electronic health records and provider order entry systems (Healthcare IT News, 9/23).