Educating Health Professionals about the Electronic Health Record (EHR): Removing the Barriers to Adoption

In the healthcare industry we have had a significant rise in the use of electronic health records (EHRs) in health care settings (e.g. hospital, clinic, physician office and home). There are three main barriers that have arisen to the adoption of these technologies: (1) a shortage of health professional faculty who are familiar with EHRs and related technologies, (2) a shortage of health informatics specialists who can implement these technologies, and (3) poor access to differing types of EHR software. In this paper we outline a novel solution to these barriers: the development of a web portal that provides facility and health professional students with access to multiple differing types of EHRs over the WWW. The authors describe how the EHR is currently being used in educational curricula and how it has overcome many of these barriers. The authors also briefly describe the strengths and limitations of the approach.