New AMA grant program will invest $12 million in precision education

The American Medical Association (AMA) is striving to revolutionize medical education with a new $12 million investment to incorporate precision education into more medical schools, residency programs, and continuing medical education for physicians. Precision education leverages data systems and technology, including Augmented Intelligence (AI), to tailor learning experiences to individual needs, optimizing learner time and focusing on targeted areas of growth. Through the AMA’s groundbreaking Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program, 10 projects will receive funding of at least $1.1 million distributed over four years. This effort will enable institutions to transform learning systems and assess and elevate competencies that matter most in serving patients.  

“This important investment underscores the AMA’s commitment to advancing medical education through innovation and collaboration,” said AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD. “By democratizing access to precision education, we’re empowering institutions of all sizes and resources to create personalized, scalable learning journeys that meet the distinct needs of future and practicing physicians and their patients.” 

By addressing the unique needs of each learner, precision education improves medical education from medical school through practice by boosting personalization, increasing efficiency, and transferring agency to the learner. Precision education systems offer valuable feedback in real time, helping learners stay engaged and progress at an optimal rate. Examples of precision education include:  

• An AI system analyzes subtle patterns in student performance by combining multiple data streams to deliver resources targeting specific clinical skill building opportunities.
• A resident receives highly specific insights about their exposure to and management of common conditions from an AI engine mining data from the electronic medical record and comparing it with what is expected for their level of training. 
• A practicing physician receives curated digital content and articles indexed for relevance to their upcoming patient panel and clinical experience.  

“Precision education is the future of medical education and, when implemented widely, will result in a more effective, efficient and equitable education model that will produce the most capable physician workforce to meet the needs of our patients in the future,” said Sanjay Desai, MD, chief academic officer at the AMA.  “With this new initiative, the AMA will support building and scaling tools to assess and foster competencies to help physicians thrive in medicine and improve patient care. The AMA is thrilled to increase access to precision education tools by enabling deployment, replication, and scale in diverse settings.” 

Over the past decade, the AMA’s ChangeMedEd initiative has invested more than $40 million in medical education innovation across the continuum. The Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program is the result of a multi-year collaborative design process with nationally recognized experts in precision education and AI, and the distribution of smaller precision education grants that helped to define this new vision of personalized medical education.  

Learn more about the Transforming Lifelong Learning Through Precision Education Grant Program by visiting the website. The call for letters of intent will open on March 18. 

The American Medical Association is the physicians’ powerful ally in patient care. As the only medical association that convenes 190+ state and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health care.  The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises and, driving the future of medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care.