Abstract
Background: As paper records become obsolete, undergraduate education must prepare healthcare students to use electronic health records (EHRs). Some teaching programmes use ‘dummy’ EHRs to teach EHR-related skills. Dummy records are unfit for purpose as real EHRs contain vast volumes and varieties of data.
Patient data is commonly used to facilitate healthcare research but not for education. Our Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) work explored views on using real EHRs to teach healthcare students.
Summary of Work: With support from useMydata, PPIE representatives of varying ages, ethnicities and backgrounds provided views on potentially using real EHRs to teach healthcare students.
Summary of Results: Participants recognised that teaching using real EHRs will enable students to deal with complexities of authentic data, ultimately improving patient care. They identified that the immensity of data included in EHRs could overwhelm new healthcare professionals. They shared anecdotes of inaccuracies in EHRs, affirming the benefits of learning from real mistakes.
Participants felt strongly about protecting patient privacy with strict data governance. Some expressed concerns about sharing sensitive information whereas others advocated sharing all EHR data for holistic teaching. The group recognised that complete anonymity could never be guaranteed. However, they expected students to uphold patient confidentiality, as they would once qualified.
Finally, participants discussed the importance of a carefully considered recruitment process to encourage participation. They also suggested inclusion of EHRs from marginalised and vulnerable groups as crucially, overlooking them may introduce health inequalities in the education system.
Discussion and Conclusion: Healthcare students must learn to cope with complexities of real EHR data. The default assumption is that patients are unwilling to disclose personal information for education. Our PPIE work demonstrates recognition of the benefits of sharing authentic EHRs to prepare healthcare students for practice, provided that safeguards protect the privacy and integrity of information.
Take-home Message: We must adopt new ways of teaching digital literacy to our future workforce. Just as plastic dummies used in emergency simulations are not replacements for real people, dummy EHRs are not a suitable resource to teach skills pertaining to real patient data. Let’s stop assuming that patients are unwilling to share their data – let’s simply ask them.
Patient data is commonly used to facilitate healthcare research but not for education. Our Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) work explored views on using real EHRs to teach healthcare students.
Summary of Work: With support from useMydata, PPIE representatives of varying ages, ethnicities and backgrounds provided views on potentially using real EHRs to teach healthcare students.
Summary of Results: Participants recognised that teaching using real EHRs will enable students to deal with complexities of authentic data, ultimately improving patient care. They identified that the immensity of data included in EHRs could overwhelm new healthcare professionals. They shared anecdotes of inaccuracies in EHRs, affirming the benefits of learning from real mistakes.
Participants felt strongly about protecting patient privacy with strict data governance. Some expressed concerns about sharing sensitive information whereas others advocated sharing all EHR data for holistic teaching. The group recognised that complete anonymity could never be guaranteed. However, they expected students to uphold patient confidentiality, as they would once qualified.
Finally, participants discussed the importance of a carefully considered recruitment process to encourage participation. They also suggested inclusion of EHRs from marginalised and vulnerable groups as crucially, overlooking them may introduce health inequalities in the education system.
Discussion and Conclusion: Healthcare students must learn to cope with complexities of real EHR data. The default assumption is that patients are unwilling to disclose personal information for education. Our PPIE work demonstrates recognition of the benefits of sharing authentic EHRs to prepare healthcare students for practice, provided that safeguards protect the privacy and integrity of information.
Take-home Message: We must adopt new ways of teaching digital literacy to our future workforce. Just as plastic dummies used in emergency simulations are not replacements for real people, dummy EHRs are not a suitable resource to teach skills pertaining to real patient data. Let’s stop assuming that patients are unwilling to share their data – let’s simply ask them.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Type | Short Communication |
| Media of output | Presentation |
| Publication status | Unpublished - 26 Aug 2023 |