Rx for Learning

February 08, 2001, 10:00 AM — Ethel Bullitt had a severe case of medical student amnesia. After two years of cramming her brain with thousands of new biomedical terms, images of cells, symptoms of diseases and drug interactions, her memory had turned to mush. In a few days, the 25-year-old Tufts University medical student would have to report to her first clinical rotation in surgery. Her worst fear: forgetting everything she'd ever learned.

Bullitt began second-guessing herself: What is the proper way to listen to a patient's heart and lungs? What are the proper steps in examining the knee? So before she ever stepped into a teaching hospital, Bullitt went to her school's website and logged on to the Health Sciences Database -- a virtual medical student's brain containing lectures, lab slides, anatomy illustrations and her own notes -- and reviewed physical diagnosis procedures. "It's great to be able to have this kind of backup when you're feeling a little shaky, because surgery rotation is a grueling experience," she says. "You have to determine how the patient is doing, and you need to be sure you are right. The surgeons are basing some of their decisions on what you tell them."

Bullitt's experience is one example of how the Health Sciences Database is transforming the way Tufts trains physicians, dentists and veterinarians. No other medical school in the country -- and Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston is among the top-ranked -- has created this kind of KM system for students and faculty. Tufts credits the system with helping students to master course material more easily, keeping the curriculum up-to-date and increasing organizational efficiency. The system is becoming a national model for medical education.

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Headquarters Medford/Somerville, Mass.

Core Business: Education

student enrollment: 8,500

faculty: 4,000

URL: www.tufts.edu

Not only did Tufts put together a model system, it did so at a time when medical schools and teaching hospitals face tremendous pressures. The demands of managed care have squeezed faculty time. Declining insurance reimbursements for patient care services have cut into revenue. And federal and state funding for treatment and research has diminished. Yet the system evolved in a culture of innovation and creativity at Tufts that stayed focused on continually improving education. "The challenge now is for IT to provide the tools to develop a potentially more effective model for educating medical students," says Bruce Metz, vice president of information technology at Tufts.

CIO awarded Tufts a 2001 Enterprise Value Award because its contribution to medicine far exceeds mere financial return on investment. "Educational institutions need role models, and Tufts is one," says John Glaser, vice president and CIO at Partners HealthCare System in Boston, one of this year's judges. "In training physicians and health-care professionals in a complex, volatile industry that is less amenable to time restraints, managing and keeping course material current and integrated is crucial. Tufts has taken on a very messy educational challenge, done an extraordinary job of sizing up that challenge and is doing some pioneering work."

Down from the Ivory Tower

Call Elizabeth Eaton a pioneer, but she prides herself on being a pragmatist. The director of Tufts' health sciences library learned in the late 1980s of a new project by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Bethesda, Md., to explore the use of technology in library information management at medical schools. Her mission: to get Tufts' foot in the door. The project meant obtaining the backing of two of the nation's most powerful medical organizations. It also meant money -- big money. Eaton wanted Tufts to stake its claim to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in NLM grants.

Vital Statistics

Cost: $455,000 for system development; $130,000 annually for operations and maintenance.