EndocrinologyDo Electronic Health Records Help Or Hinder Medical Education?
Many countries worldwide are digitizing patients" medical records. In the
US, for example, the recent economic stimulus package signed into law by
President Obama includes $US17 billion in incentives for health providers
to switch to electronic health records (EHRs) and $US2 billion for the
development of EHR standards and best-practice guidelines. What impact
will the rise of EHRs have upon medical education? A debate in this week"s
PLoS Medicine examines both the threats and opportunities.
Discussing the threats, Jonathan U. Peled (a medical student at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA) and Oren Sagher
(Associate Professor and Residency Program Director at the Department of
Neurosurgery, University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
USA)
argue that the EHR could have a harmful impact upon medical education.
The effects of implementing EHRs on patient care have not been uniformly
positive, say Peled and Sagher, and a number of reports of risk have
already been published. "Our experiences have led us to believe that the
potential risk of EHRs to medical teaching may be just as significant and,
if not addressed, could erode the education of an entire generation of
physicians."
Laying out the opportunities, Jay Morrow and Alison E. Dobbie (Faculty
Assistant and Professor at the Department of Family and Community
Medicine,
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA), argue that
the EHR can enhance medical education in three ways. First, they say, "use
of an EHR can enhance history taking and physical exam skills." Second,
they believe that the EHR can enhance physician-patient communication if
it is incorporated into the doctor-patient encounter. Finally, Morrow and
Dobbie have found that the EHR "can be an impressive clinical teaching
tool."
Funding: No funding was received for this work.
Link to related paper
PLoS Medicine