Distributed Medical Informatics Education Using Internet2

William Hersh, M.D.

Associate Professor and Chief

Division of Medical Informatics & Outcomes Research

Oregon Health Sciences University

Portland, OR, USA

hersh@ohsu.edu

Acknowledgements

• Collaborators– Oregon Health Sciences University

• Patricia Tidmarsh, J.D.

– University of Pittsburgh• Charles Friedman, Ph.D.• Joseph Cummings

• Funder– National Library of Medicine (NLM) Contract

467-MZ-001707

Overview

• Background

• Rationale

• Current efforts

• Future Plans

Medical Informatics

• The field concerned with the storage, acquisition, and use of information in health care

• A relatively new, multidisciplinary field without a defined skill set, educational pathway, job description, etc.

Academic medical informatics

• A growing number of M.S., Ph.D., and postdoc fellowship programs– Twelve programs funded by NLM– Another dozen or so programs

• Academic programs focus on research but most graduates assume non-research positions

A problem with medical informatics education

• From Corn M, MD Computing, 1999, 16(2): 25-27– Of 12 core topic areas, no program has

coursework in more than eight

• Programs tend to reflect the interests of their faculty– This could be detrimental to students having

different interests or wanting a broader education

Technology may help…

• “Low end” distance learning– OHSU Graduate Certificate Program has over

80 enrollees who take courses featuring• Streaming audio + Powerpoint lectures• Threaded discussion boards• Other usual activities – term paper, final, etc.

– Mostly mid-career professionals, demonstrates interest in medical informatics education from diverse audiences

Technology (cont.)

• “High end” distance learning– Internet2-based collaboration between OHSU

and University of Pittsburgh

Aims of project

• Develop coursework that takes advantage of expertise at specific sites as well as collaboration across sites

• Provide access to such coursework and the faculty who teach it over Internet2 within the framework of the home institution’s program infrastructure

• Facilitate cross-institution student collaboration• Evaluate the techniques used and student

outcomes

Rationale for collaboration

• OHSU and Pitt are both Internet2 institutions• They have complimentary expertise, e.g.,

– Pitt strength in electronic medical records and evaluation of systems

– OHSU strength in information retrieval and digital libraries

• Both are devoted to educational innovation in medical informatics

Others are doing this too…

• Graduate seminar in communications– 42 students from Univ. of California Santa

Barbara, Univ. of Southern California, Purdue Univ., and Univ. of Illinois

– Using Internet2-based videoconferencing, students and professors interacted in real time

– www.spcomm.uiuc.edu/contractor/429_files/ frame.htm

Efforts so far

• Transmission of– Research conferences from OHSU

– Research-in-progress meetings from Pitt

• Only minor problems encountered so far– Sound difficulties related to microphone placement

– Latency of image when Powerpoint slides transmit

– Once a dropped connection forcing reconnection

Future efforts planned

• OHSU MINF 514, Information Retrieval & Digital Libraries (Hersh)– Covers major issues in indexing, retrieval, evaluation,

and digital libraries– Offered in OHSU spring quarter - early April to mid

June– Meets three hours per week from 1-4 pm Pacific time– Sessions will be broadcast over Internet2 link to Pitt– Course will be taken by students in Pitt informatics and

library/information science programs

Future efforts (cont.)

• Issues to overcome– Non-overlap of academic schedules

• Pitt is on semester system, with spring semester ending in early May

– Course time less than ideal• Pitt students in class from 4-7 pm

– How to issue credit• Initially will be offered as seminar course at Pitt

Future efforts (cont.)

• Trivia Bowl– Traveling trophy to be awarded (virtual?)– Three students from each site answer trivia

questions developed by faculty

• Other faculty and student interactions– Two faculty teach innovative courses on

organizational behavior issues– Hope to encourage student collaboration on

projects

Technology used

Polycom Viewstations• IP-based• Transmission over Internet2Other cameras, microphones, PCs

Internet2

OHSU Theater receiving transmission from Pitt

Future directions

• We can improve technology; technical challenges include– Explore higher-quality videoconferencing

– Investigate additional learning modalities

• Real challenges are– Determining whether and how much to integrate

academic programs

– Foster community of faculty and students

– How to sustain efforts after initial funding ends