The University of Victoria Interdisciplinary Electronic Health Record Educational Portal

Use of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems is increasing globally. However, adoption rates of Health Information Systems (HISs) continue to remain poor. To improve adoption rates, there is need to provide greater HIS experience to health professionals and informaticians in health and biomedicine during their undergraduate and graduate education. A recent review of the health professional educational curricula (i.e., medicine, nursing, allied health and health/biomedical informatics) revealed that they provide only limited exposure to EHRs. In response to this educational need, the authors have developed the University of Victoria Interdisciplinary Electronic Health Record Educational Portal (UVicIED-EHR Portal). This unique, web-based portal allows students of the health professions and practicing professionals to access and interact with a set of representative EHR HIS solutions using the web. The portal, which links to several EMRs, EPRs and PHRs, has been used by several health professional educational programs in medicine, nursing and health informatics. It provides practicing health and health/biomedical informatics professionals, for example, managers and directors, with opportunities to access and review EHR systems. The portal has been used successfully in the classroom, laboratory and with distance education to give hands-on experience with a variety of HISs and their components.