Medical students will learn to apply digital health to patient care at Colorado university

Jackie Drees -

Parker, Colo.-based Rocky Vista University will pilot a new digital health track to teach future physicians how to best treat patients using digital platforms, St. George News reports.

The digital health track is the first academic course track to be offered in a U.S. osteopathic medical school, according to the report. It will be offered at both of RVU's Colorado and Southern Utah campuses beginning in 2020. Just 12 undergraduate medical students from each campus will be selected to participate in the program.

The digital health track will include education on artificial intelligence, remote monitoring, clinical informatics, telemedicine, population health analytics, genomics and social media in medicine. Ethics in digital health will also be applied to the course work. 

Students in the track will meet online once a week for class, which will help them learn how to use the digital applications the courses are modeled to address, said Regan Stiegmann, DO, co-leader of the digital health track and vice president of medical affairs for health IT and media company Owaves, according to the report.

"[Administering the course online] teaches students how to build relationships with patients who they're communicating with on a telehealth platform," Dr. Stiegmann said. "It teaches students how to read those nuances when you don't have a human body sitting in front of you. Those are some of the most important relationships that we're going to have to learn to build."

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