BOSTON – Some medical students and physicians are taking to a new approach to learning, one designed to suit today's rapidly changing healthcare system.

Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston are among the residency programs that are adopting online medical training created by Tufts Health Care Institute. The pilot program is in use by about 300 residents at five institutions and 10 graduate learning programs.

Called THCI Online Learning Campus, the material connects directly to the resident or doctor's patients, said THCI Executive Director Rosalie Phillips. The intent is to help doctors develop a "systems-based practice and practice-based learning."

It sounds like gobbledygook to most residents, doctors and medical school faculty, said Phillips. But the idea is to apply what you learn and also to understand how the healthcare system works.

Traditionally medical students were expected solely to learn as much medical science as they could. Today, they must also know how the healthcare system works and who else is on the patient's care team.

Medical informatics, healthcare economics, team care and how insurance companies work have not traditionally been part of the curriculum, said Dr. Janet Silber, associate dean for Graduate Medical Education at Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College. Besides offering new material, online campus modules drive students to apply what they earn to everyday situations. The case management module, for example, asks the students to recommend follow-up care for 10 of their patients.

"It's more than a fancy textbook," said Silber. "Residents take this to their patients. It's live for them and real for them. This type of program really insists that you take it into the practice."

Dr. Jean Riquelme, a family physician with Bellin Medical Group, a 12-physician practice in Green Bay, Wis. used Tufts' online modules to get up to speed on care management and quality improvement. "It's a management intense system," Riquelme said. "It's a pretty dense system as far as oversight and management goals."

Tufts modules clarified for her what systems and evidence-based care can do. "It's practitioner oriented, not for the suits," she said. "I am not exaggerating to say that it has been life-changing for me."