Health Informatics Fellowship

The fellow will develop an expertise in health informatics with an emphasis on four pillars:

Health data acquisition and management: The fellow will develop an understanding of the Canadian health care system and the challenges of data acquisition in the emergency room as well as learn to evaluate and optimize user interfaces. The fellow will also develop and understanding of the management of health data including Canadian and American guidelines for health data access, privacy, security and confidentiality.

Data analysis: The fellow will learn to analyze data from large databases such as Big Data for QI projects research as well as to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care and the clinical workflow.

Clinical HI applications: The fellow will learn to understand the various clinical HI solutions used in the ED as well as emerging technologies including decision support systems and artificial intelligence.

HI innovations and change management: The fellow will learn to understand the process of HI innovations within the healthcare setting ranging from needs analysis to solution design, deployment and maintenance as well as financing. Fellow will be learn to understand the software development lifecycle and IT project management. The fellow will also learn the challenges of HI system deployment and strategies to effectively lead

The fellow should be able to demonstrate effective communication skills by their ability to:

• Evaluate user experience
• Develop strategies to communicate with the user of ED HI systems in line with deployment, maintenance of skills and upgrades
• Support the team through transitions towards advanced HI applications
• Address concerns in change management

The fellow will collaborate with the multidisciplinary clinical team and

• Support team in change management
• Seek/understand issues users face
• Partner with both clinical and non-clinical groups to bridge the gap.

The fellow will develop and apply leadership skills to:

• Promote a fertile environment to promote HI innovations such as Big Data, AI and clinical decision support systems to optimize of ED flow
• Promote and participate in quality improvement projects
• Acquire leadership skills in HI solutions lifecycle including planning, deployment, support and upgrades
• Understand cybersecurity issues and solutions

The fellow will be able to incorporate HI towards better patient care

• Guide the design HI tools for communications with families, users
• Be able to identify priorities for decision support for improving quality of care
• Be able to articulate positive and negative impacts of deployment of innovative HI applications (i.e. the impact of AI on the care of patients. )

The fellow should be able to demonstrate an intellectual approach to HI in the emergency department in the following areas during participation on patient rounds, teaching sessions, journal clubs and interdisciplinary meetings

• Continuing medical education: show interest in self-directed learning skills by demonstrating knowledge in the evolving concepts in the HI field
• Critical Appraisal of the Literature both medical and non-medical as it applies to HI by demonstrating the ability to research the literature and identify the best available articles as well as identifying field and areas of cutting edge publications in HI
• Scientific interest: demonstrate ability in identifying areas in HI where gaps in knowledge or expertise exist by retrieving the essentials of the literature, summarizing the evidence to date and develop research ideas to fill these gaps while being able to demonstrate the relevance of finding answers to the question at hand.
• Teaching skills: be able to develop teaching tools to facilitate user learning of HI software and should be available to answer questions or discuss common difficulties users experience.

The fellow should be familiar with medical, legal, and social aspects of HI in day-to-day work as it pertains to applications such as patient data privacy, confidentiality and security. They should approach situations with the highest level of integrity and honesty being able to identify areas of penitential conflict of interest. They should show responsibility and reliability in the exercise of their function and demonstrate awareness of their own limitations and seek advice appropriately. The fellow should more specifically demonstrate professionalism in the following issues:

• Be aware of privacy issues and how to address them with users
• Recognize the limitation HI applications in medical practice in the face security of information
•  Recognize areas of conflict of interest in HI

One Year Program

• 11 periods of clinical rotation (8 shifts per period)
•  2 periods of 4-week elective in a Canadian or American organization with advanced HI databases, HI solutions such as AI or real-time decision support systems. (may or not be ED specific)
•  20 seminar lectures and small group discussion sessions (3 hours) occurring every 2 weeks which will be the foundation of our HI curriculum (incudes 11 journal club sessions, lead by the fellow and supported by the fellowship instructors)
•  Participation in ED leadership HI group meetings and other IT committees across sites.
• Research or HI project, where the fellows are encouraged to collaborate with other academic programs and outside organizations with expertise in fields such as epidemiology and engineering)
• 2 academic presentations at EM rounds.
• 1 or 2 university-level courses to enhance knowledge of any of the four pillars, based on the individual's needs
• Self-directed learning plan and 2 progress assessment with the fellowship director
• Reference course textbook includes, but not limited to Biomedical Informatics and Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine.
• Attend 1 American or Canadian Health Informatics conference

A. Deadlines for all Fellowship applications

• September 1st deadline for applications from Fellowship applicants.
• September – October is when files will be posted for programs to review and start the interview process.
• December 15th is the last date that we will accept decisions from Program Directors as to whether they accept applicants After this date the applicants can only be considered for the next academic year.
   

B. Admissions Process

• The starting point of the application process is the online application which is required by all applicants to McGill University’s postgraduate medical education programs. https://www.mcgill.ca/pgme/admissions
• Once candidates apply online they could check the status of their application at www.mcgill.ca/minerva-students

C. Offers

• Offers will be issued as decisions are made by the Program.
• The delay for applicants to respond to offers has been set to 2 weeks.

It is the responsibility of the candidate to check their account and submit a complete file.

Ms. Dolly Rabbath
Fellowships Administrator
Faculty of Medicine
McGill University
3655 Promenade Sir William Osler Room 601
Montreal (Québec) H3G 1Y6
Tel: 514-398-8264
Fax: 514-398-3595
E-mail: pgfellows.med [at] mcgill.ca