The EPIC-integrated teaching framework: Transforming the electronic health record into a cognitive workspace for...

Although electronic health records (EHRs) are integral to modern health care, their educational value remains underutilized in graduate nursing curricula. Documentation is often treated as clerical rather than cognitive work, overlooking its potential to teach reasoning, reflection, and systems awareness.

This paper presents the EPIC-Integrated Teaching Framework (EITF), a theory-driven model that transforms the EHR into a cognitive workspace for developing clinical judgment and interprofessional collaboration in advanced nursing education.

Grounded in Benner's skill acquisition model, Tanner's clinical judgment framework, and Knowles, Holton, and Swanson's adult learning theory, the EITF aligns developmental, cognitive, and motivational principles within the EPIC environment. Its four domains-preceptor pedagogical behaviors, EPIC learning mechanisms, learner cognitive processes, and competency outcomes-are mapped to the AACN Essentials (2021) and NONPF (2022) competencies.

Embedded instruction within EPIC enables preceptors to "make visible the invisible," turning documentation into an interactive reasoning exercise that builds informatics literacy, systems thinking, and professional identity. The EITF reframes the EHR from a passive record into an active learning instrument that cultivates reflective, data-literate nurse practitioners prepared to lead in complex clinical environments.