 Electronic Patient Records |
Electronic Patient Records |
| Illustration by Malcolm Garris/PhotoDisc |
by
Whitney Wood Imagine a world where the patients aren’t real but the collaboration is. That’s what the Health Information System Simulation (HISS) Project at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has created. At UTMB, allied health and nursing students use software to learn how to plan and deliver multidisciplinary care, while also getting experience using computers and cutting-edge technology. The trick is in the simulated electronic patient records that are the core of the software. The HISS project was the brainchild of healthcare educators Rodger Marion, PhD, and Bruce Neibur, PhD. In 1984, when the personal computer was first appearing on the scene, they started thinking about the best way to use computers to develop new ways of teaching, said Marion, the director of the office of research and educational technology at UTMB. They also thought students needed to learn how to use computers the way their future jobs in health care would require them to. The project stayed on the back burner until 1991, when funding came through from the Bureau of Health Professions. Marion and Neibur hired programmers, and by the fall of 1992, students at UTMB were busy learning from the simulated electronic patient records. The software, now in its Phase 2 release, includes the fictional but true-to-life electronic records of patients with common diagnoses. Each patient record has several episodes of care, and students from different disciplines work together to plan their approaches. For example, a physician assistant student and an OT student might be assigned to work together. The PA student would take the role of primary care provider seeking a consult from the OT or PT student. The two would use the conferencing software that’s part of the HISS package to collaborate on the patient’s care. Every case demands multidisciplinary care. Students in RT, OT, PT, PA, medical laboratory, and medical records management programs are the most frequent users of the software. But a "scattering" of nursing and medical schools use the software too, and beta testers included EMT students, Marion said. Marion stressed the software is not simply a way to teach students about electronic patient records. Instead, it’s designed to help them learn about care planning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and problem solving. Each of the more than 100 assignments possible in the software encourages students to draw on each other’s knowledge and to consider factors such as cost and travel. That way they can help their actual patients deal with the challenges of real life. The project incorporates another goal too: to encourage students to practice in underserved areas once they graduate. Marion said his own experience working with underserved populations provided the motivation for that aspect of the program. Each of the virtual patients lives in a simulated community that is underserved, so students finish their software work with plenty of suitable training. Marion looks forward to a Phase 3 release that could take even better advantage of Internet technology. He said Internet resources have already added a great deal to the HISS software. Marion is excited about the ways technology will help the allied health professions share the best information and teaching tools. He’s working on an adjunct project, InterCol, that will create a searchable Web-based clearinghouse for innovative allied health teaching software. For now, students at the 40 schools of allied health that currently license the HISS software are busy learning real-life collaboration skills in a virtual world. |
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