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President's column: subspecialty certification in clinical informatics

2011; Oxford University Press; Volume: 18; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000582

1527-974X

Edward H. Shortliffe,

Primary Care and Health Outcomes

Shortly after Don Detmer joined AMIA as its first full-time professional president and CEO, he became aware of the growing demand among clinical informaticians for a process by which they could be credentialed to show their competence and accomplishments in the field. Such credentialing would require consensus on the design and content of training programs for clinical informaticians, and AMIA seemed to be especially well positioned to develop the materials necessary to promote the process. In early 2007, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AMIA embarked on an 18-month process to define the field of clinical informatics, its core competencies, and the rationale for recognizing a formal subspecialty in the area.1 Several AMIA members were invited to serve on the study groups that produced key documents that were ultimately approved by the AMIA board of directors and published in J Am Med Inform Assoc . One dealt with the core competencies in the field, helping to define the knowledge base that needs to be reflected in any curriculum for training individuals in the burgeoning discipline.2 The second focused on recommendations for program requirements in the creation and promulgation of fellowship opportunities for subspecialty training.3 In parallel with these activities, Dr Detmer was pursuing the engagement of AMIA with the Council of Medical Subspecialty Societies (CMSS), which is an umbrella organization for all the physicians' specialty societies, representing their shared interests and collaboration. Not only was Don successful in representing the case for AMIA's election as a full member in CMSS, but he was elected to their board and served as CMSS treasurer for several years. The strong support for clinical informatics among the established medical professional societies led Don to begin discussions with some of the associated clinical boards about their interest in proposing a …