Healthcare professionals are beginning to value the importance of EHR training early in a career to help ease the transition to the next level.
MEDITECH and its health IT solutions partner teamed up with AHIMA to develop a new EHR training program for 16,000 students at over 300 colleges and universities across the country.
AHIMA will deliver a custom, virtual EHR training curriculum for associate, baccalaureate, and graduate degree programs. The organization will also offer certificate level and continuing education unit programs to qualifying students.
Quality EHR training is essential to users, especially those new to the technology. Research shows it is the highest prognosticator of EHR user satisfaction. Researchers recommend a minimum of four hours of EHR training to boost EHR satisfaction.
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The AHIMA VLab, an online portal that features several health information software applications and courses, will offer the training on MEDITECH Expanse EHR.
In a recent KLAS survey, MEDITECH stood out among its EHR vendor competitors in the Acute Care EHR category for community hospitals.
“We are excited to implement the MEDITECH Expanse platform,” Wylecia Wiggs Harris, AHIMA CEO, said in a statement. “It will give students a leg up on the competition by offering them early exposure to the real-world EHR solutions used in their field every day.”
MEDITCH’s Expanse is a cloud-based EHR system that is accessible to students over a web browser. AHIMA said its curriculum added the Expanse Ambulatory solution, which gives student users a similar feel to a clinician.
“MEDITECH is excited to help train college students on the latest EHR technology,” said Helen Waters, executive vice president, MEDITECH. “It’s a pleasure to be working with AHIMA and Sisu to offer this valuable experience to the next generation of healthcare professionals.”
According to Burning Glass Technologies, there are over 40,000 available jobs that relate to integrating, implementing, configuring, or activating EHR systems.
EHR training is vital to reducing clinician burnout, and beginning this process with young clinicians is a step in the right direction.
Earlier this year, The University of Buffalo, Cerner Corporation, and the Great Lakes Integrated Medical Record (GLIMR) collaborated to create an EHR training program at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Buffalo.
“Documentation of the clinical encounter is an important skill for the student physician,” Andrew Symons, MD, vice chair for medical student education in the Department of Family Medicine at the Jacobs School, said at the time of the announcement.
“When students begin clinical rotations in the third year of medical school, they all need to utilize an EMR,” continued Symons, who is also the director of the first-year clinical skills course. “As our community more widely adopts GLIMR, students will be using the system in most of their inpatient and outpatient clinical rotations.”
Prior to the launch of this training program, students transcribed their clinicals on Microsoft Word. Following the launch, students utilized Cerner’s EHR educational domain.
The first class began in the spring 2020 semester and at the time of the announcement, Symons explained that 35 medical students signed up as “super users.” These individuals helped sort out technical issues before the spring.
Industry leaders are also looking at health IT training from the other end of the spectrum — from the developer’s point of view.
In June, the University of North Florida (UNF) announced a new EHR training program to help graduating students prepare for future jobs in the health IT field.
In partnership with Optimum Healthcare, a staffing and consulting services firm, UNF hosted the country’s first EHR apprenticeship program at the collegiate level aimed to train graduating students on specific EHR platforms.
The individuals will join Optimum project teams with the end-goal of being hired by a hospital client once the 12-week program is completed.
Source: EHR Intelligence