Electronic Health Reporter

The adoption and mainstreaming of electronic health records continues to face hurdles, even in the least likely of places: teaching hospitals and residency programs. Apparently, even though medical students are using EHRs at the highest levels ever, only a small portion of those students are actually able to write notes or fully access the systems.

According to new studies published by Teaching and Learning in Medicine, researchers “found that 64 percent of the medical school programs allowed students to use their EHRs, but only two thirds of those allowed the students to write notes in them.”

The irony here seems to be that most, if not all, of the residents entering practice after school will either implement EHRs on their own, if they start their own practices, or will seek practices with the latest technology, including EHRs. Certainly, practices with paper-based systems will find it hard to retain and attract new talent to their practices if they don’t employ technology, such as an electronic health record or mobile devices.

With this in mind, one would think that teaching and residency programs would encourage the use of the systems if for no other reason than to attract the best talent to their programs, let alone to ensure that the doctors entering the commercial sector and serving patients are best equipped to provide the best care in the most efficient manner. Unfortunately, given these new findings, it appears student physicians will be forced to potentially deal with not only learning the ropes of the business world – payroll, insurance, employment laws – but also with how to navigate learning technologies they have rarely seen or worked with.

Regarding the limited use of the EHRs in the hospital setting, authors of the study sum up the reason for lack of participation by the students pretty well — Medicare rules. It seems Medicare doesn’t allow physicians to rely on trainee’s EHR notes in care setting.

Odd, given the fact that the student “trainee” is allowed to save lives in the ER, practice care alongside a staff physician throughout the hospital, is most likely months or so from entering professional practice, but for some reason, said trainee’s notes can’t be relied upon for accuracy and integrity, at least as far as Medicare is concerned.

This, frankly, seems like another example of a flawed system. Training programs should be opening up their systems to students, if not in a live setting then at least in a closed classroom-type environment so that they can get they hands on the systems and be more adept at using them once they move onto professional careers.

Perhaps EHR vendors should partner with hospitals to initiate training programs or create partnerships that allow for classroom-based training sessions where the students can use a system for several weeks or months to see how they work and can benefit the provider. The students are, after all, still students and should be given every opportunity to learn. And, participating vendors could go a long way toward getting their products into the good graces of thousands of new physicians who are entering commercial practice and likely in need of an EHR and other technology solutions.