Abstract
BackgroundAn electronic health record (EHR) is the state-of-the-art method for ensuring all data concerning a given patient are up to date for use by multidisciplinary hospital teams. Therefore, medical students need to be trained to use health information technologies within this environment from the early stages of their education.ObjectiveAs little is known about the effects of specific training within the medical curriculum, this study aimed to develop a course module and evaluate it to offer best practice teaching for today’s students. Moreover, we looked at the acceptance of new technologies such as EHRs.MethodsFifth-year medical students (N=104) at the University of Tübingen took part in a standardized two-day training procedure about the advantages and risks of EHR use. After the training, students performed their own EHR entries on hypothetical patient cases in a safe practice environment. In addition, questionnaires—standardized and with open-ended questions—were administered to assess students’ experiences with a new teaching module, a newly developed EHR simulator, the acceptance of the health technology, and their attitudes toward it before and after training.ResultsAfter the teaching, students rated the benefit of EHR training for medical knowledge significantly higher than before the session (mean 3.74, SD 1.05). However, they also had doubts about the long-term benefit of EHRs for multidisciplinary coworking after training (mean 1.96, SD 0.65). The special training with simulation software was rated as helpful for preparing students (88/102, 86.2%), but they still did not feel safe in all aspects of EHR.ConclusionsA specific simulated training on using EHRs helped students improve their knowledge and become more aware of the risks and challenges of such a system. Overall, students welcomed the new training module and supported the integration of EHR teaching into the medical curriculum. Further studies are needed to optimize training modules and make use of long-term feedback opportunities a simulated system offers.
Highlights
Electronic health records (EHRs) comprise health information of a patient showing clinical data collected from all professionals involved in the patient’s care, including nurses, doctors, therapists, laboratories, and external specialists [1]
More perceived ease of use and higher usefulness might underlie the findings of Tierney et al [10], with medical students as digital natives being closer to technology systems
Previous studies have shown that training in the implementation process of EHR in general is useful [2], training in EHR has improved communication when using the EHR [23], and training in the usage of EHR should already be in the focus of medical education fairly early on [9,15]
Summary
Electronic health records (EHRs) comprise health information of a patient showing clinical data collected from all professionals involved in the patient’s care, including nurses, doctors, therapists, laboratories, and external specialists [1].Besides the immediate integration of a wealth of clinical data and examination results, implementing the usage of EHR provides numerous benefits, including increased adherence to guidelines in preventive care, decreased paperwork for providers, improvement in overall quality, efficiency of patient care [2], reduction of errors [3,4], enhanced monitoring of drug therapy [4], better daily workflow management [5], easy access of clinical data, legibility of notes, improved problem and medication lists, and better preventive care documentation. Previous studies have shown that training in the implementation process of EHR in general is useful [2], training in EHR has improved communication when using the EHR [23], and training in the usage of EHR should already be in the focus of medical education fairly early on [9,15]. This takes into account that most errors in EHR usage come down to issues concerning adequate training, well-prepared implementation, and the possibility of getting accustomed to the system [24,25]. Medical students need to be trained to use health information technologies within this environment from the early stages of their education. Further studies are needed to optimize training modules and make use of long-term feedback opportunities a simulated system offers
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