AMA launches EHR training platform for medical students

As part of an effort to build the medical school of the future, the nation’s leading medical association has launched a new platform designed to train medical students to use EHRs.

The American Medical Association announced the new training platform, which was built by the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University School of Medicine with the help of a $1 million grant from the AMA, on Wednesday. The Regenstrief EHR Clinical Learning Platform incorporates deidentified data from Eskenazi Health and will be used at Indiana University, the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and the Southern Indiana University School of Nursing.

Students can use the web-based training module to virtually care for patients by using EHRs to submit orders and review patient records—something most medical students are unfamiliar with when they enter their residency.

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“Our medical schools are very good at preparing students for the basic and clinical sciences that are essential to providing patient care,” AMA Vice President for Medical Education Susan Skochelak, M.D., said in the release. “However, many residents and young physicians are coming out of medical school with gaps in their ability to practice in the modern health system. Too often, students enter residency training without the ability to effectively and efficiently work with EHRs, even though they are one of the primary tools physicians use in everyday practice.”

At UConn, students will focus on two distinct uses of EHRs, according to AMA Wire. The first uses electronic systems to understand social, cultural and mental health issues. The second instructs students on how to use data to inform population health decisions.  

The training resource comes nearly two years after the AMA adopted a policy encouraging medical schools to incorporate EHR training. Medical schools like the University of California, San Francisco, have since embraced a 21st century curriculum.