Proposal

Narrative

A majority of office-based physicians (1) and almost all hospitals (2) use electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs are used to document patient care and optimize care coordination, quality and safety.(3) Despite this widespread EHR use, students often have limited opportunities to fully access and sufficiently learn about EHRs during medical school.(4) If funded, we will address this gap at the College of Medicine (COM) by implementing EHR Go, an educational platform that simulates an EHR system. Faculty can use this platform to teach critical EHR skills. Also, with its integration in several courses, it can help students to excel across all curriculum competency domains (5) as described below and align with our COM Strategic Plan goal to “harness innovation to drive educational excellence”. • Knowledge for Practice/Patient Care: EHR Go includes simulated patient cases, each with documentation and data similar to that used in clinical practice (provider notes, lab results, etc.). As students learn to access and use this EHR information, they will apply what they learn in class to the care of these patients. • Interpersonal and Communication Skills/Interprofessional Collaboration: Students will learn how to compose clinical notes using the EHR. They will also learn to accurately and safely order diagnostic tests, medications and treatments. Students can review documentation from providers of other disciplines, building skills in team-based, coordinated care. • Practice-Based Learning and Improvement/Systems-Based Practice: This educational EHR will allow students to use recorded data to study patient care quality. This aligns with the COM Strategic Plan goal to “provide access to value-based care”. • Professionalism/Personal and Professional Development: This platform can be used to address ethical and professional issues related specifically to EHR use (i.e. information privacy) as well as patient care in general (i.e. medical error).

Facilities

Not applicable

Hardware Requirements

EHR Go is an online web-based platform that is accessible from any location using a computer or tablet. Therefore, students will use their own individual internet-enabled devices without the need for additional hardware.

Software Requirements

EHR Go is a web-based platform. Detailed information is available at www.ehrgo.com. As a web-based program, it can be easily adapted to both in-person and virtual learning formats. Therefore, we'll be able to use this program not only during routine operations, but also in the event of disruption to in-person clinical curriculum content delivery such as during our ongoing pandemic response.

Personnel Costs

Not applicable. EHR Go provides faculty and students with 24/7 technical support.

Other Costs

Not applicable. Though students may use their personal devices to access this program, they may also access the platform using the iPads provided to them by the College of Medicine. As such, there are no additional personal costs for the students.

Timeline

Implementation of this 3-year project will begin once funds are available. The vendor will provide faculty with immediate no-cost access to the EHR Go platform. Faculty will have this time to learn its functionality and will benefit from incorporating this technology into their instructional methods. They will collaboratively plan their courses, and may adopt, edit, or create cases to integrate with course content. We are planning for a one-time purchase of approximately 201 subscriptions which will be used to provide 12 months of access for 3 cohorts of medical students during the project period. Subscriptions will be activated as students begin their second year and will continue through the first several months of the third year. This program will be used with small group case-based teaching sessions as well as hands-on skills sessions, enhancing authenticity and clinical context to reinforce learning. It’s important to note, that though this planned intervention will directly benefit our medical students, this technology will be used at our Clinical Skills and Simulation Center where medical students engage in simulated patient encounters. A majority of the participants who portray patients during these simulations are FAU preprofessional students who may also indirectly benefit from early exposure to this teaching method. This planned timeline will enable us to teach students important EHR skills while they are learning advanced documentation and clinical skills before entering clinical rotations and engaging in direct patient care in a full-time capacity. This timeline and project plan will allow us to maximize educational impact while minimizing costs.

Sustainability

Throughout this 3-year pilot project, our COM Office of Program Evaluation and Assessment will evaluate our use of this instructional method as part of our ongoing program evaluation. In coordination with our Learning Resources Committee, we will also more broadly evaluate our entire portfolio of learning resources. This evaluation data will help us to prioritize resources and if indicated, reallocate funds to support the ongoing use of this EHR training program beyond the project period. EHR Go is designed to be adapted for learners from a range of health professions, such as nursing, social work, and pharmacy. After 3 years of using this program, we anticipate that the knowledge and experience we gain will enable us to collaborate in educational sessions with other FAU health professions students. This presents opportunities for cost-sharing with interested stakeholders as well as collaborative pursuit of external funding for interprofessional projects. This plan aligns with the FAU Strategic Plan goals of Synergy, Quality and Strategy – as we seek to “identify economies of scale and incorporate new technologies to further institutional development” and plan for “wise and innovative allocation of resources”. We will also be able to conduct scholarly work based on our use of this technology and its timing within our curriculum, aligning with our COM strategic plan goal to “enhance our identity and visibility”.

Resource Matching

Not applicable

Implementing Organization

Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Office of Medical Education