Elsevier

Ophthalmology

Volume 128, Issue 3, March 2021, Pages 349-353
Ophthalmology

Editorial
Bringing Ophthalmic Graduate Medical Education into the 2020s with Information Technology

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2020.11.019Get rights and content

Section snippets

Telehealth

Telehealth describes health care delivery over distance or time using electronic communication technologies.3 It can be used to deliver essential care in resource-sparse settings and to distribute expertise that is usually concentrated in few centers. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, telehealth visits also can address patient access issues by avoiding infection risks of in-person visits for older and immunocompromised at-risk patients. As described by Li et al,4 a

Electronic Health Record Education

Medical trainees spend a significant portion of their time interacting with EHRs, but receive little formal training in how to use these tools effectively. Residents learn most EHR skills on the fly in the clinical setting and adopt the habits and shortcuts of their colleagues in a non-systematic fashion.21 Curricula in EHRs have been piloted in medical education, although none specifically in the field of ophthalmology, and of the 11 reported interventions, only 4 target residents.22

Artificial Intelligence

The rapid emergence of AI in ophthalmology highlights the urgent need to incorporate AI into medical education. Trainees must be equipped to evaluate the use of AI critically in their clinical practice. Artificial intelligence, and more specifically deep learning, refers to machine learning techniques that enable the automatic recognition of intricate structures in high-dimensional data.37 In particular, it has been used in imaging analysis across all subspecialties of ophthalmology, with

Implementation of Information Technology Education

The possibilities for integration of the proposed curriculum into residency and medical student education are many. Ideally, the material should be presented in the context of clinical education, where these concepts can be applied directly. Fundamental concepts can be taught through material presented in the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Basic and Clinical Science Course and in a didactic format. These concepts can be reinforced in the Basic and Clinical Science Course Question Bank and

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  • Cited by (0)

    Disclosure(s):All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE disclosures form. The author(s) have made the following disclosure(s): M.F.C.: Consultant – Novartis; Financial support – Genentech; Equity owner – InTeleretina, LLC. A.Y.L.: Financial support – Santen, Regeneron, Novartis, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Verana Health, Genentech/Roche, United States Food and Drug Administration, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Topcon

    Supported by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (M.F.C.); and the National Science Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia (M.F.C.).

    Medical Information Technology Committee of the American Academy of Ophthalmology members: Aaron Lee, MD (co-chair), Thomas S. Hwang, MD (co-chair), April Maa, MD, Suzann Pershing, MD, James Brandt, MD, Nikolas London, MD, Kelly Chung, MD, and Jessica Peterson, MD, MPH.

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