Informatics

Informatics

The growing role of information technology within health care delivery has created the need to deepen the pool of informaticians who can help organizations maximize the effectiveness of their investment in information technology and in so doing maximize the impact on safety, quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of care.

The UCLA Health system has been named among the nation’s “Most Wired” by Hospitals and Health Networks magazine and has been honored with the HIMSS Analytics Acute Care Stage 7 Award, representing the highest level of electronic medical record progress at hospitals and health systems (a distinction awarded to only 1.2% of U.S. hospitals) and 1 of only 4 sites worldwide to have achieved Stage 7 in three distinct areas: inpatient, ambulatory, and analytics.

The UCLA Psychiatry Residency Training Program offers a variety of opportunities for residents with an interest in informatics.

The UCLA Health Resident Informaticist Program provides clinician trainees with a general understanding of Clinical and Health Informatics topics. The program embraces a practical hands-on approach in order to attain tangible results. Monthly meetings cover a wide variety of topics and help provide a deeper understanding of how Health IT and Clinical Informatics can be leveraged to effectively utilize the EHR. Additionally, resident informaticists will complete an independent program practicum. Resident informaticists receive an educational stipend upon satisfactory completion of their independent program practicum and attendance at the required meetings. UCLA residents (PGY-2 and higher) and fellows are eligible to apply.

There is a strong tradition of psychiatry trainees participating in the Resident Informaticist Program which has resulted in tangible improvements to the clinical workflow. Recent projects have included:

    • Creating a Cardiometabolic Risk Screening Tool for patients at risk of developing metabolic syndrome secondary to antipsychotic use
    • Assigning numeric values to each aspect of the mental status exam to allow for visual tracking of patient outcomes over time
    • Implementing ratings scale-based monitoring of psychiatric symptom burden in a primary care setting
    • Replacing hand-written forms for legal holds with electronic versions that can be filled out more easily and cannot be lost or misplaced
    • Embedding relevant laboratory results directly within the order screen for antipsychotics and mood stabilizers (e.g., displaying the most recent TSH, Cr, and urine pregnancy when ordering lithium)