Training to use EHR technology

I'm reading the July 2008 issue of "Health Data Mangement" and there's an article entitled "Training the Next Generation," written by Beckie Schuerenberg, where the merits of teaching medical students how to use EHR programs are described and a programs at schools such as Vanderbilt University's School of medicine are outlined. In my last post, I suggested this might be a good way to encourage EHR adoption, and I'm glad to see that it is happening, though, as Schuerenberg describes, it is by no means wide scale across medical schools.

I think a next step would be to show them how to be empowered through specific types of customization, to get physicians and physicians-in-training to think about how and what types of patient data would they require in their respective fields, or how it would change according to where they are rotating.

In addition, how do we promote EHR through other types of training? Not only future physicians, but others, such as medical office staff, or other health care professionals such as PAs should be exposed early in their education as well.

Promoting Electronic Health Record Use

In an article published in the New York Times on June 19, 2008 “Most Doctors Aren’t Using Electronic Health Records,” author Steve Lohr observes that using electronic systems in health services delivery can improve accuracy, reduce costs, and facilitate information sharing. Yet the cost of implementation in small practices (1-3 physicians), which account for half of the medical care practices in the US, has been prohibitive such that only 9% of them are using electronic records. The article goes on to describe government intervention, including $150 million project, which offers small practices to make the transition.

How can we increase the number of physicians who use healthcare IT, so that the benefits of more accurate care, lower costs, and information sharing become widespread? It seems we need more than just a government intervention. One place is in medical school: though many physicians in training have an already packed curriculum, the students are so driven for good patient care and efficient results, that it’s a good place for them to get exposure to the merits of healthcare IT before the opportunity costs of changing while already in practice kicks in. Since many students are in medical school associated with large university medical centers, it might mean they have exposure to the enterprise packages, such as Epic Systems or Cerner, and it is probably hard to see the whole picture when working with just one module on rotation. So bearing all the benefits in mind would help. I think making EHR use a reality depends somewhat on initiatives such as these. I strongly suspect that IT soloutions companies would also be willing to chip in towards creating a curriculum unit on IT in healthcare.