gms | German Medical Science

The increasing degree of digitization in health care requires specific competencies of medical informatics for physicians. Therefore, the national project group „Medical Informatics Teaching in Medicine“ of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS) has consented a comprehensive catalog of learning objectives in 2012 [1]. Since 2016, the project group has turned into a working group, which regularly evaluates and discusses the catalog in the light of current developments and challenges regarding competencies in medical informatics for students of medicine. Requirements and discussions by the Association of German Medical Faculties (Medizinischer Fakultätentag, MFT) [2] and the German Congress of Physicians of 2017 (120. Ärztetag) [3] were taken into account.

After publication of the first version, yearly meetings of the working group took place to constantly collect update requests. In September 2018, all update requests were summarized and discussed. As a result, the chairs of the working group drafted a new version, which was then finalized after two iterations (1: major revision, 2: minor revision) by way of circulation.

Table 1 [Tab. 1] summarizes all chapters. The full version of all learning objectives – including competence levels and roles – is available in Attachment 1 [Attach. 1].

While the first version contained 42 learning objectives distributed in 8 chapters, the updated version contains 45 learning objectives in nine chapters, see Table 1 [Tab. 1]. The three new items were assigned to the new chapter entitled „Apps, clinical decision support and artificial intelligence“. One existing item, called „Consumer health informatics“ was updated as „Patient apps“ and transferred to this new chapter.

Chapter number 1 was renamed from „Medical documentation and information processing“ to “Medical information management and communication“.

The old chapter „Data protection and IT security“ was renamed to „Data protection and regulatory requirements“, which now includes the item „Legal foundations“ and „Medical informatics in research“. Moreover, new aspects of IT and data security were added, mentioning the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Critical Infrastructures (KRITIS) and Information Security Management (ISO 27001). The item „Patient security“ was updated to address the new Medical Device Regulation (MDR, EU-V 745/2017) and In-Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR, EU-V 746/2017).

Digitization poses new chances and challenges for physicians but also for the society as a whole. Six years after the first release of the catalog of learning objectives in Medical Informatics, an update was required and consented. Patient empowerment, patient apps, clinical decision support and artificial intelligence are covered more thoroughly than in the old catalog, also regarding critical aspects. The consented catalog can serve as guidance for teaching medical informatics in the curriculum of medical schools. The working group will continuously discuss for updates of this competency-based catalog, also in the light of the National Competence-Based Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education (NKLM) and national digitization initiatives from clinical disciplines – e.g. radiology [4], anesthesiology and intensive care [5] and internal medicine [6], [7].

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.