Using the electronic health record to provide audit and feedback in medical student clerkships

Objectives This article focuses on the role of the electronic health record (EHR) to generate meaningful formative feedback for medical students in the clinical setting. Despite the scores of clinical data housed within the EHR, medical educators have only just begun to tap into this data to enhance student learning. Literature to-date has focused almost exclusively on resident education. Materials and Methods Development of EHR auto-logging and triggered notifications are discussed as specific use cases in providing enhanced feedback for medical students. Results By incorporating predictive and prescriptive analytics into the EHR, there is an opportunity to create powerful educational tools which may also support general clinical activity. Discussion This article explores the possibilities of EHR as an educational resource. This serves as a call to action for educators and technology developers to work together on creating health record user-centric tools, acknowledging the ongoing work done to improve student-level attribution to patients. Conclusion EHR analytics and tools present a novel approach to enhancing clinical clerkship education for medical students. Lay Summary As we transition from paper charts to electronic databases for storing and managing our healthcare data, healthcare professionals and trainees are expected to navigate and document within electronic health records (EHRs) systems. While these records of health hold a wealth of information, educators have yet to explore how they could be used to improve student learning. Most research to-date has focused on resident physicians, overlooking medical students in clinical experiences. This article focuses on the role of EHRs in offering valuable formative feedback to medical students, giving examples to adopt in practice and to assist with meeting accreditation requirements. This is a call to action for educators and technology developers to collaborate on creating user-friendly tools for health professions education within our electronic health systems.