It’s commonly thought that the current generation of medical students are more technologically savvy, and thus, able to better utilize electronic medical record systems.
But an interesting study found that’s not always the case.
From the ACP Internist, almost 200 medical students were asked to use a mock-EMR during a patient encounter. Here’s what was found:
Students were scored on their ability to find information crucial to the patient’s case within the EHR and their ability to analyze the EHR without alienating the patient. While most couldn’t access the information, they did interact with the patients face-to-face and even explained when they looked away to the computer.
It’s a testament to the non-intuitive user interfaces that most EMRs have that these students, most of whom use online social networking tools, could not successfully find the necessary patient information.
It is encouraging, however, that most were able to interact with the patient while occasionally looking away from the screen. It takes some facility with computers to do that.
I agree that courses training students on how to best adapt an EMR during a patient encounter are needed. It would also help if the systems themselves improve their UIs to make the experience more intuitive for doctors.
