Educational Innovations Project (EIP)

In 2005, the NYMC-WMC Internal Medicine Residency Program was selected from among dozens of well qualified programs as:

• One of 17 programs in the country selected by the ACGME in Phase 1 to re-define Medical Education for Internal Medicine (there are now 21 total)

This status has given the training program:

• Flexibility to create a training program that emphasizes the knowledge, skills and attitudes in the 6 core competencies for physicians of the 21st century

The award winning PDTS Handoff System

The NYMC-WMC EIP initiatives have led to the refinement of the state-of-the-art PDTS computerized handoff system which incorporates unique patient care features such as:

• Paperless handoff using i-touch/i-phone/i-pad or Droid platform
• Sick Patient Risk Stratification
• To do prioritization
  • Verification, reminder prompts, tracking
  • Instant Messaging
• Coverage Reports (for handoff information reference)
• Events reporting
• Faculty Oversight

The faculty oversight module is the first of its kind and ensures that the resident’s handoff information is as refined, accurate and useful as possible. This important concept was described in the recent publication: Experience with faculty supervision of an electronic resident sign-out system, Nabors C, Peterson SJ, Lee WN, et al. Am J Med. 2010;123(4):376-381. 10.1016/j.amjmed.2009.12.010

House officers at NYMC have also made important contributions to improved patient safety by helping to incorporating a clinically significanyt events reporting module into the PDTS handoff software. Their efforts have been described in the Journal of Patient Safety: Physician Reporting of Clinically Significant Events Through a Computerized Patient Sign-Out System. Nabors C, Peterson SJ, Aronow WS, et al Journal of Patient Safety. Sept. 2011 66; 7(3):154-160

Other house officers, in conjunction with Medicine Faculty from the General Internal Medicine and Endocrinology Divisions have devised a novel means by which to track quality of patient care through the New Innovations residency management software package. This work has been accepted for publication in the American Journal of Therapeutics.

Hospital Communications in the 21st Century

The faculty and house officers of the Medicine Residency Program are leading the way at Westchester Medical Center in terms of developing the most effective and efficient means by which in-hospital communications are carried out. Currently the PDTS software package is being refined to permit the instant messaging of consult requests and the correct-provider-linked relay of critical laboratory and imaging findings throughout the institution. While most hospitals rely on phone and pager systems to carry out these important communications, NYMC-WMC is committed to make this process even faster and more reliable. By interfacing with the hospital’s electronic “white board” system with PDTS, health care providers always have access to correct provider information, making communications that much more efficient. This permits our clinicians to focus on providing the best patient care possible.

Educational Strategies and the Internal Medicine Curriculum

As the health care system of the 21st century evolves, internal medicine residencies must adapt their curricula to suit the new environment. One of the strategies being employed in the NYMC-WMC program is to use the “educational milestones” to guide to our educational activities. These milestones were developed in 2009 by the ABIM/ACGME and NYMC-WMC is the first training program to successfully incorporate the milestones on a large scale into an educational curriculum. We have submitted for publication a description of our experience and work so that other programs may learn from and help to improve upon the concept of utilizing milestones into internal medicine training. Operationalizing the Milestones – a Draft Report, Teaching and Learning in Medicine, Nabors, C, Peterson, S. Holmboe, E., et al, submitted for publication July 30, 2011.

Page Updated: September 16, 2011