Introducing an academic data warehouse into the undergraduate medical curriculum

There is increasing interest in integrating population health and informatics topics into the undergraduate medical curriculum, yet little consensus exists on the most effective approach to accomplish this. We introduced the use of an academic data warehouse of encrypted patient information into an existing 2nd year medical school course. Exercises were developed requiring students to retrieve and interpret information regarding local disease prevalence, practice patterns, and patient characteristics. These exercises were integrated into existing weekly problem sets in a multiple-choice format. Faculty and student perceptions were assessed with surveys, and augmented with interviews of student volunteers, and database usage statistics. Our results indicate widespread agreement among both students and faculty that population-based medicine warrants inclusion in undergraduate medical education. The majority of the students felt the exercises complemented the clinical cases around which they were structured. There was less agreement, however, that the exercises were valuable, with several students suggesting a more open-ended, discussion-oriented approach. It was clear that faculty perceptions had a significant impact on student reactions.