Promoting patient safety using electronic medical records in nursing/midwifery undergraduate curricula: Discussion paper

This discussion paper highlights the importance of Australian nursing and midwifery students’ lack of exposure to electronic medical records during their undergraduate programs. There is pressure on universities offering nursing and midwifery programs to provide students with opportunities to learn to use patient electronic medical records. This will provide authentic rehearsal with the digital technology prior to clinical placements and increase graduate work readiness.
Informed by contemporary literature, we describe the benefits of implementing electronic medical records (eMR) in health organisations and identify the challenges and barriers to implementing and integrating the education of electronic records into undergraduate nursing and midwifery programs. Undergraduate students who had not experienced eMR as part of on-campus learning felt unprepared and lacked confidence when commencing clinical practice. Some international nursing and midwifery programs have found that student’s skills improve in decision-making and documenting patient observations when eMR is integrated into their university education program.
Successful integration of an eMR program should consider academic/teaching staff skills and confidence in technology use, initial and ongoing costs and technical support required to deliver the program.
In conclusion, Australian universities need to embed eMR learning experiences into the nursing and midwifery undergraduate curricula to increase students work-readiness with a focus on patient safety.