A study abstract in Academic Medicine says medical educators should incorporate EHR technology in medical training, and one such way to do so is to have students track former patients in the EHR to self-audit and determine the accuracy of their diagnoses.
However, such access to patient information in the EHR blurs the line between the ethical use of protected health information and compromising patient autonomy, the authors argue.
While tracking improves training and offers long-lasting benefits to society, students should be limited to what EHR records they can access, as determined by patient autonomy, patient permission, having legitimate educational intent and self-restricting access to only those records necessary for training, the authors write.
More articles on EHRs:
10 EHR implementation statistics
Why one physician is forgoing EHRs
A history of EHRs: 10 things to know
