Integration of electronic medical records into nursing simulation lab

INTRODUCTION: Healthcare workforce is increasingly moving towards the global adoption of information technology for efficient delivery of healthcare services. Despite the growing importance of EMR, health professions students have been given little or no handson training on EMR during their course of training. The modernization of healthcare calls for the integration of EMR into the learning process of HPD students, thereby exposing them to its use. PURPOSE: By incorporating EMR into various HPD curricula, students become familiar with this complex technology prior to entering healthcare environment workforce and thus become more comfortable with the skill and technology. METHODOLOGY: NSU-Nursing Simulation Lab EMR with initial focus on nursing students was designed using the platforms of Microsoft Access, SQL and Visual Basic to provide practical and interactive learning experience while using EMR as part of nursing simulation. It also provides real-life learning experiences for Biomedical Informatics (MSBI) students in the areas of EMR development, implementation and evaluation. RESULTS: Expect the incorporation of EMR into HPD curricula will greatly improve students learning outcomes and give them hands-on experience to seamlessly adopt the use of such EMR applications in any healthcare environment. And also for the MSBI students to effectively develop, implement, evaluate and customize any EMR applications to the need of organizations. CONCLUSIONS: (a) Incorporating use of EMR into the curriculum of other colleges (b) measuring the learning outcomes of the students as it relates to effective medical practices and information retrieval via medical simulations and the use of social networks in 3D virtual environments like Second Life