A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Nursing Students’ Cognitive Challenges and Workarounds during EHR-related Tasks

Abstract

Although electronic health record (EHR) systems are intended to improve patient safety and standardize patient data entry, rapid integration has led to increased medical errors and user frustrations. Previous research has analyzed the usability of these platforms for professional user groups; however, limited research has studied the novice users or users' cognitive challenges with EHR use throughout the data lifecycle. Therefore, a mixed-methods research approach was adopted to identify nursing student's cognitive challenges and efforts along the EHR data lifecycle. The current study identifies the cognitive work of five critical tasks through the construction of Hierarchical Task Analyses (HTA). Current findings indicate that nurses can encounter environmental interruptions and conflicting mental models, which impacts how data is extracted and entered into the system. Findings from later studies could be incorporated to better comprehend the challenges encountered by novice users.