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Indiana University School of Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine
Leadership and Administration
Med students performing ultrasound on patient

Innovating Medical Education


Evolving to Meet Future Needs

Indiana University School of Medicine has a proud history of innovating in medical education. The school pioneered the use of regional campuses to deliver high quality medical education throughout the state. More recently, it was the first school in the country to implement a unique teaching electronic health record to prepare students to use EHRs when they enter residency and practice.

That focus on innovation in medical education continues today.

Innovation SummitInnovation Summit

To ensure it continuously evolves to meet the needs of students, patients and communities, IU School of Medicine, led by Executive Associate Dean Paul M. Wallach, MD, launched a renewed focus on innovation in the summer of 2018. More than 100 members of the school community gathered to put forward their best and boldest ideas at an inaugural Innovation Summit. Scores of other faculty, staff and learners shared their ideas through an online Innovation Portal.

They sought to answer questions such as:

  • What content should be given greater emphasis during medical school and/or residency, and what should be reduced or eliminated?
  • What changes should we make to pedagogical approaches and learner assessment?
  • How do we foster a positive learning environment that promotes personal and professional development, and wellness?
  • What should change in medical education to better serve our patients and communities?
  • How do we establish a culture of innovation and excellence?

Moving Ideas Into Practice

The school has assembled a comprehensive list of innovation recommendations it will further consider and is assessing how to prioritize projects and initiatives. The recommendations fall into four primary categories:

  • Enhanced video conferencing tools and techniques to promote dynamic video conferencing, interactivity and learning regardless of location
  • High-quality asynchronous learning, including an online library of podcasts and lectures for all courses and clerkships
  • Online core clerkship curriculum
  • Deploy point-of-care ultrasound curriculum for undergraduate medical education and graduate medical education
  • Create educational offerings in health IT, data science and informatics, including development of scholarly concentrations and/or certificates
  • High-quality electronic health records curriculum
  • Incorporate 3D printing and virtual reality technologies into curriculum to provide students with a basic understanding of their benefits and ability to help solve complex medical problems with new innovations
  • Develop telemedicine curriculum
  • Ensure future physicians can work with new and emerging technologies

  • Develop a coaching program
  • Recruit a group of coaches and pilot coaching curriculum with students who want coaching; build a “community of practice” of coaches to support expansion
  • Evaluate and develop emotional intelligence in learners
  • Promote Master Adaptive Learner program

Focus educational content on:

  • Population health, with an emphasis on the state’s most important needs
  • Value-based care and stewardship of resources
  • Leadership
  • Health care financing and reform
  • Quality and safety
  • Evidence-based medicine
  • Interprofessional education

  • Research In Medical Education community
  • Use pilot grants to spur innovation and promote educational scholarship and research
  • Proposed innovation projects:
    • Wellness coaching program
    • Use multiple mini interview and CASPer® in admissions process
    • Make education competency based, not time based (or a combination of the best of both)
    • Pilot reduced emphasis on memorization (i.e., open book exams)
    • Move Step 1 after the third year of medical school
    • Pre-matriculation ideas
    • Scribe training
    • Online idea box