Dr. Lisa Chan Receives Board Certification in Clinical Informatics

December 16, 2014

Congratulations to Lisa Chan, MD, professor of emergency medicine, who recently earned board certification in clinical informatics, a new subspecialty approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties. Established in 2011, clinical informatics is the first new board-certified medical specialty in 20 years.

To receive board certification in clinical informatics, physicians must be board-certified in any of the primary medical specialties and demonstrate informatics expertise on the critical information management, documentation and patient-safety issues that are a challenge to today's patient care environments. ABMS certified its first physicians at the end of last year.

Dr. Chan and Kevin Reilly, MD, are directing the UA Department of Emergency Medicine’s newly formed Division of Clinical Informatics and Clinical Informatics Fellowship. The UA Department of Emergency Medicine is one of a few emergency departments in the country to offer a Clinical Informatics Fellowship, a two-year training program designed to create outstanding active clinical leaders with expertise in health information technology. The program aims to provide fellows the knowledge and skills needed to transform the practice of emergency medicine by analyzing, designing, implementing and evaluating information systems to improve patient care and enhance clinician productivity.

Sam Keim, MD, chair, UA Department of Emergency Medicine and director, Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center, says, "I couldn't be prouder of the rapid development of our new clinical informatics program! Analysis of clinical data and provider performance now allows us to dramatically improve quality in a way never previously possible.  Having two faculty, like Drs. Chan and Reilly who are also expert clinicians, to interpret the data and form all the right questions creates an extraordinary team."