Care New England Health System recently announced it has partnered with Brown University to offer medical students the opportunity to serve as an Epic physician builder/informaticist. As part of the physician builder team, students will be planning, designing and building content for medical or surgical specialties within Care New England’s Epic electronic medical record system.
Tomas Gregorio, Care New England’s chief information officer, spoke about the new program.
PBN: How did this new partnership between Care New England and Brown University come about?
GREGORIO: Throughout my career, I have mentored hundreds of university students and believe that they are an essential ingredient in developing the health care technology professional of the future.
My expertise and leadership in digital health contributed to the development of the new partnership between Care New England and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. This relationship with Brown, along with our enterprise deployment of Epic makes for the perfect environment for medical students to receive a unique academic experience while assisting our clinicians in building our HER [electronic health record].
PBN: What is an electronic medical record system and how do health systems like CNE use it?
GREGORIO: An electronic medical record system is a software program that allows health care providers to create, store and access patient records digitally. EMRs typically contain general information such as medical history, diagnoses, medications, allergies, lab results and treatment plans for a patient as collected by the individual medical practice. Health systems such as Care New England use EMR systems to streamline clinical workflows, improve patient care and reduce costs.
PBN: How will getting hands-on experience working with CNE’s Epic EMR system benefit students?
GREGORIO: Getting hands-on experience working with CNE’s Epic EMR system will benefit students in several ways. First, it will teach them how to use a state-of-the-art EMR system that is widely adopted by many health care organizations in the U.S. and abroad. Second, it will expose them to various clinical scenarios and specialties that are supported by Epic’s modules, such as Orders, Cadence, and Beaker. Third, it will enable them to participate in the development and improvement of the EMR system, as they can provide feedback and suggestions to CNE’s IT [information technology] team.
PBN: Do you see this program as the beginning, or continuation, of a trend toward focusing medical school curriculum on digital tools, and why or why not?
GREGORIO: I do see it as a continuation. Once we are live with the system, the opportunities to optimize and innovate will lead to the continuous need for clinical talent to help.
As health care is becoming more reliant on technology and data, digital health topics such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence and health informatics become core tools in a physician’s practice of medicine. I believe that this program is not only beneficial for the students and the health system but also for the advancement of medicine and health care in general.
PBN: How is this program being funded?
GREGORIO: The program is being funded by CNE.
Katie Castellani is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Castellani@PBN.com.
