Creating a Clinical Informatics Elective for Emergency Medicine Residents (Informatics, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence Interest Group-Sponsored)

This session will address the rapid expansion of informatics, data science, and artificial intelligence in emergency medicine (EM), spanning clinical operations, quality improvement, and analytics. With increasing interest from EM residents in clinical informatics, there is a growing need to provide earlier exposure to this field. We will present strategies and resources for developing a clinical informatics elective, followed by a panel discussion with experts who have successfully implemented such electives. Panelists will share best practices, curriculum development insights, and address challenges. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and gain practical strategies for integrating clinical informatics into EM residency programs.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:
  • Recognize the need for emergency medicine residents to have early exposure to clinical informatics
  • Identify the resources available for developing an informatics elective at their own program
  • Create a clinical informatics elective curriculum for emergency medicine residents
  • Describe the skills they would like to see their residents take away from a clinical informatics elective

Presenters:

  • Moira E. Smith, MD, MPH
  • Brian Kwan, MD, MS
  • Robert W. Turer, MD
  • Nicholas Genes, MD, PhD
Authors

  • Moira E. Smith, MD, MPH

    University of Virginia

    Moira Smith, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Director of Digital Clinical Workflows, and Assistant Emergency Medicine Informatics Director at the University of Virginia. She completed her emergency medicine residency and clinical informatics fellowship at the University of Virginia. Her work focuses on data analytics and reporting, quality improvement, electronic health record usability and workflow optimization, and clinical decision support. She is the current Chair Elect of the SAEM Informatics, Data Science, and Artificial Intelligence Interest Group.

  • Brian Kwan, MD, MS

    UC San Diego Health

    Prior to pursuing medicine, Brian Kwan had several other careers including nine years as a high school science teacher, where he became interested in educational technology. He authored several high school science textbooks and has received teaching awards at multiple instructional levels. Brian discovered an interest in informatics while an emergency medicine resident at Highland Hospital in Oakland, CA, where he also served as a chief resident. Brian subsequently completed a clinical informatics fellowship at UC San Diego in 2023. He is currently an assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and the medical director for education informatics at UC San Diego Health.

  • Robert W. Turer, MD

    University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

    Robert Turer, MD, MSE, MSACI is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

    After completing his undergraduate degree in computer engineering and a Masters degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, Dr. Turer attended the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He completed residency in emergency medicine at the University of Michigan, where he served as a chief resident. He pursued fellowship training and a Masters degree in clinical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center before joining the faculty at UT Southwestern in 2021.

    At UT Southwestern, Dr. Turer serves as a core faculty member within the Clinical Informatics Center, Program Director for the Clinical Informatics Fellowship, and Deputy Chief Medical Informatics Officer (DCMIO) for Analytics. As a researcher, he studies patient-facing technologies, including patient portals. Dr. Turer, along with Dr. Robin Higashi, was awarded a Texas Health Resources Clinical Scholars grant to study language-related disparities in patient portal enrollment and use among Spanish-speaking patients in Dallas.

  • Nicholas Genes, MD, PhD

    New York University

    Dr. Nicholas Genes is a Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he also directs the Clinical Informatics Fellowship.

    He serves as Director of EM Informatics for the NYU Langone Health System Emergency Department, and within ACEP, he is now Vice Chair of ACEP’s AI Task Force, having previously chaired ACEP’s Health IT Committee and Section for Medical Informatics.

    He has a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University, pursued his MD and PhD at the University of Massachusetts, and trained in Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai.

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