Pharmacy students' readiness to use the electronic health record: A tale of two institutions

Abstract

IntroductionDespite widespread implementation of the electronic health record (EHR) in practice, the EHR curriculum in pharmacy schools is slow to emerge. This study used a single assessment tool to evaluate pharmacy students' perceived readiness to use an EHR after completion of two different curricula. MethodsPharmacy students at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and the University of California San Diego (UCSD) pharmacy schools voluntarily participated. A 14-item survey was administered asking students to rate their comfort on several different EHR skills. Baseline data on non-academic EHR exposure was also collected. ResultsSeventy students at UNMC and 69 students at UCSD participated in the survey (27.2% and 28.5% response rate, respectively). Gender and academic year were similar between institutions. Overall, students were more comfortable finding information compared to entering new information in the EHR. Students were most comfortable reviewing laboratory information, progress notes, and medication lists and less comfortable performing medication reconciliation and identifying clinical errors. There were no differences between institutions for overall comfort. Students with at least one month of extracurricular EHR experience rated themselves as more comfortable, but not all of those differences were statistically significant. ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that two different EHR curricula in two different pharmacy schools can result in similar student confidence. The information and assessment tool from this study can be a helpful starting point for other schools to determine student preparedness to work with the EHR as well as provide information to inform EHR curricula design and assessment.