Bridging Parallel Disciplines: An Integrated Workshop for Clinical and Imaging Informatics Training

Medical informatics training consists of two types of fellowship programs: clinical informatics (CI) and imaging informatics (II). Historically, there has been little collaborative learning between these fellowships despite significant overlap in content. This project created a collaborative workshop series for CI and II fellows, which taught mutually-relevant topics and provided an opportunity for cross-disciplinary collaboration in designing workflows for enterprise imaging scenarios. Content was informed by the American Board of Preventive Medicine CI Test Content Outline and an II fellowship curriculum previously published by II fellowship directors. Outputs of the exercise included a Venn diagram displaying similarities and differences between the two specialties, as well as the enterprise imaging workflow designs of each small group. The workshop series was well-received by participating fellows in a follow-up survey, with most (77%) indicating that the content was effective or very effective at showing the need for collaboration between CI and II disciplines and that the knowledge gained would likely be implemented in their future work. Potential areas for improvement include: clarifying expectations at the outset, translating ideas generated in the curriculum into real-world projects, and optimizing learner experience in a partially virtual platform. A collaborative workshop series between imaging and clinical informatics fellows is the first of its kind in informatics, both in content and teaching style. Continued efforts to increase the quality and reach of such integrated learning are needed to prepare future clinical and imaging informaticists to meet the demands of the highly interdependent modern healthcare system.