Evaluating Electronic Health Record Competencies: New Trends and Approaches Involving Simulations

Over the past 10 years, there has been a significant increase in the number of electronic health records (EHRs) used worldwide. EHRs are being increasingly used across the health-care continuum from the physician’s office to hospitals and from in-home care to long-term care settings. With this rise in EHR usage, there is a need for physicians and other health professionals to develop EHR-related competencies alongside traditional patient management and treatment competencies as part of their undergraduate education. As technological advances such as EHRs are incorporated into routine health-care delivery, there will be a need to (a) determine the types of EHR competencies that are necessary for medical students to become EHR literate; (b) investigate how EHR competencies can be developed using EHR simulators and computerized patient mannequins; (c) develop objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) for the purpose of testing medical and EHR competencies for medical education; (d) develop several EHR OSCEs designed to evaluate EHR competencies; (e) pilot test and evaluate the developed OSCEs; (f ) evaluate developed EHR OSCEs with students, faculty, and medical and health informatics experts; and (g) implement them in traditional medical curricula.