AMIA, the leading professional association for informatics professionals, today announced a series of new additions and enhancements to the Clinical Informatics Board Review Course (CIBRC) Online Plus. The online course is part of an education learning program for boarded physicians seeking certification in the new subspecialty of clinical informatics. The review course offers CME credit and is useful for other Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) professionals interested in advancing their careers through participation in a comprehensive clinical informatics course.

“This is the third year of CIBRC Learning Program development.  Our faculty felt it was imperative to incorporate feedback on the course from learners--physicians preparing for the Board Exam--and their own experiences as clinical informaticians into the Learning Program enhancements,” said Jeffrey Williamson, M. Ed., Vice President, Education and Academic Affairs, AMIA.

“Learner feedback indicated the need for a robust pathology informatics review, a deeper question pool for self-testing, and more self-assessment tools to gauge learning progress through each of the 27 modules.”

As of May 15, CIBRC Online Plus and the CIBRC Live courses now include a new pathology informatics module, which expands the number of available CME credits from 23 to 24.   Alexis Carter, MD, the director of pathology informatics for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University, joins CIBRC’s four esteemed faculty and content authors: physicians Bill Hersh, MD; Bimal Desai, MD, MBI; Diane Montella, MD; and Thomas Payne, MD.

“Of the 787 physicians who became diplomates in 2013 and 2014, more than 85 percent prepared for the exam with CIBRC Online or CIBRC Live courses. We’re confident the course enhancements will serve physicians well based on course constructive feedback from diplomates who are part of AMIA’s Clinical Informatics Community of Practice (CICOP),” continued Williamson.

Other enhancements included in a 12-month subscription to the CIBRC Online Plus course are:

Additional (25 percent more) Simulated Board Exam test questions, along with the ability to retake the Simulated Board Exam repeatedly,

New scenario-based questions for learning modules, and

Additional social learning capabilities: learners can submit feedback on individual questions and submit new questions that item writers will consider for inclusion in the next iteration of the course.

CIBRC Online Plus offers four core content areas that contribute to a comprehensive study plan for a physician seeking board certification in Clinical Informatics:

24 hours of learning content certified for CME credit,

Learner-generated practice tests from a pool of 145 questions,

Downloadable audio lectures,

Faculty video reinforcing key points in modules,

A Simulated Board Exam of 200 questions with meaningful answer feedback, and

A Competency Tracker that develops a customized curriculum based on a learner’s assessment results.

The Clinical Informatics Board Exam takes place in October through the American Board of Preventive Medicine and the American Board of Pathology. The application period to sit for the Board Exam is open. Eligibility requirements are available at ABPM  and ABP.

The practice pathway window is narrowing

Until the end of 2017, any board-certified physician who has been working in the field—the experiential pathway—can take the Board Exam without having completed a fellowship. In 2018, physicians sitting for the Board Exam will need to matriculate from a 24-month fellowship approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Nine specialties may offer the fellowship through their residency programs. Currently there are only seven such fellowships. AMIA supports the medical educators designing Clinical Informatics Fellowships through its Community of Clinical Informatics Program Directors (CCIPD).  The Clinical Informatics Fellowships currently offer two seats per program.  

More about the Clinical Informatics (CI) Subspecialty

With increasing investment in HIT by hospitals, health systems, and practitioners, the clinical informatics discipline is seen as vital to advancing the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Triple Aim of improving individual patient care, improving the health of populations, and reducing per capita cost of health care.  Clinical informaticians use their knowledge of patient care combined with their understanding of informatics concepts, methods, and tools to assess information and knowledge needs of healthcare professionals and patients; characterize, evaluate, and refine clinical processes; develop, implement, and refine clinical decision support systems; and lead or participate in the procurement, customization, development, implementation, management, evaluation, and continuous improvement of clinical information systems such as electronic health records and order-entry systems. To continue to advance reforms and improvements in healthcare and our system, the U.S. will rely on those physicians who are credentialed in the American Board of Medical Subspecialty (ABMS) sanctioned medical subspecialty of clinical informatics.

About AMIA

AMIA is the leading professional association for the nation’s top biomedical and health informatics professionals. AMIA plays an important role in medicine, healthcare, and science by encouraging the optimal use information, often aided by technology, to improve individual health, healthcare, public health, and biomedical research. More about the CIBRC Online Plus course at learn.amia.org and CIBRC Live at amia.org/CIBRC.