Clinical Informatics needs to be a competency for Intensive care training

Abstract

Clinical informatics is a cornerstone in the delivery of safe and quality critical care in Australia and New Zealand. Recent advances in the field of clinical informatics, including new technologies that digitise healthcare data, improved methods of capturing and storing these data, as well as innovative analytic methods using machine learning and artificial intelligence, present exciting new opportunities to leverage data for improving the delivery of critical care and patient outcomes. However, ICU training in Australian and New Zealand does not adequately address capability gaps in this area, potentially leaving future intensivists without the necessary skills to provide leadership in the application of informatics within ICUs. This highlights the need to examine how competency in clinical informatics can be incorporated into ICU training, potentially through a range of activities such as curriculum redesign, the formal project, and workshops or datathons. Further work to identify relevant informatics competencies and methods to develop and assess these competencies within ICU training is needed.