Clinical Informatics

Health care professionals who are familiar with clinical informatics are a key element of creating positive transformations within health care settings. Clinical informatics can help physicians focus on improving patient care and health outcomes, as well as strengthening doctor-patient relationships.

If you are interested in analyzing, designing, implementing and evaluating information and communication systems, this rotation will be particularly useful to you.

Over the course of this rotation, you’ll have opportunities to gain knowledge about the three main domains of clinical informatics: clinical care, information and communications technology, and the health care system itself.

You will lead a clinical informatics project using Lean methodologies, related to the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS/VistA) installed at the Buffalo VA Medical Center (Buffalo VAMC), with a heavy focus on applied clinical informatics.

To take your project from inception to implementation and sustainment, you will work with a dedicated interdisciplinary team of Change Management specialists, EHR (CPRS) analysts, IT specialists, quality and safety managers and data analysts — as well as nursing staff, physicians and administrative leadership.

Your project will be showcased during Quality Week at the Buffalo VAMC, and it can be presented at the Jacobs School’s Celebration of Scholarship — an annual research poster session for residents, fellows, medical students and junior faculty. 

You will have the opportunity to obtain a Lean yellow belt certification or higher, as supported by your project(s), at the VA Western New York Healthcare System.

Specifically, our training will enable you to:

• understand the health care environment, including how business processes influence health care delivery and the flow of data among the major domains of the health system
• recognize ethical issues and human behavior relative to the practice of clinical informatics
• develop understanding on how information systems and processes enhance or compromise the decision making and actions of health care team members
• outline a process for identifying optimization of processes and workflows pertaining to Electronic Health Records 
• gain knowledge about the importance of clinical and clinical informatics governance and their role in change management, clinical champions, super users
• understand the usefulness and pitfalls of improvements in CPRS, including opportunity cost, end-user experience, unintended downstream consequences 

By the time you complete this rotation, you will be able to competently discuss ongoing improvements of clinical information systems as a “change agent.”

Participate in two half sessions per week over the course of 12 or more weeks. 

This rotation is overseen by: