The president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges said Monday that while enrollment is expected to grow by 21 percent in coming years, the nation will need to harness new information technology to meet the pace of demand.

Technology, said Darrell G. Kirch, MD, won't solve all the problems medical education faces, "but it is a powerful tool." Kirch gave the opening keynote address at the Collaborative Communications Summit: Transforming Healthcare through Health Information Technology.

The summit continues today at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the nation's capital.

Kirch said information technology can help medical education reverse a long standing problem: the compartmentalization of education. "It's the most discontinuous process I can imagine," said Kirch, arguing that educational silos were erected -- at least initially -- to help physicians manage information.

"We long ago left the point at which single human beings could have in their heads... the necessary number of facts needed to make the right decisions," he said. Fortunately, the latest information technology puts the focus on decision-making, not fact retention. "Why does fact accumulation matter in a world where you can be connected (to the Internet) 24/7?"

Among the key enhancements IT can offer, according to Kirch:

• simulation capacity, enabling training and periodic retraining of physicians
• maintaining e-portfolios to gain and demonstrate competence
• extending expertise
• embracing evidence-based medicine (as opposed to eminence-based medicine)
• using quality metrics

Kirch said IT can also help medical education reach people and places that have been left behind the first wave of technology. And online, peer reviewed content can not only serve clinicians, but patients as well.

However, Kirch said the solution is not simply to provide physicians with new tools. "You don't shift the adoption curve by writing a new strategic plan and buying new technology," he warned. Cultural change must come first.