Preparing Newly Qualified Doctors for Digital Practice: Addressing the Digital Training Disparity in Medical Education

Hospital information systems (HIS) are now integral to the modern healthcare domain. These systems not only record the data in the form of clinical notes but also make the whole process of patient care easy, utilising electronic prescriptions, accessing laboratory results, previous clinical records, and much more. The list of the significance of these digital systems is non-exhaustive. Despite their widespread use in clinical practice, formal education on HIS remains limited within undergraduate medical training. As a result, newly qualified doctors often enter practice with little preparation for the digital environments in which patient care is delivered. This editorial not only explores the reasons for this gap, including traditional curriculum structures, limited faculty expertise, increasing curricular demands, and the assumption that digital competencies can be acquired during clinical practice, but also intends to highlight the need for curriculum revision. It also considers the implications for physician readiness, patient safety, and quality of care, and argues that competency in HIS should be regarded as a fundamental outcome of undergraduate medical education. While core competencies are transferable across healthcare settings, the diversity of HIS adopted by different hospitals and healthcare regions presents an additional challenge, requiring clinicians to adapt to local software platforms and workflows. This also highlights the use of various software due to the market’s influence.