Electronic health records (EHRs) have become an essential part of clinicians’ lives, accessing up-to-date information to improve patient safety and efficiency in direct care, and reducing reliance on patients to retell their story or remember what medications they are taking. Capturing and analysing high-quality EHR data has wider benefits including improving population health, patient participation and drug development.

Despite the vital role that EHRs play in day-to-day care delivery and academic research, healthcare undergraduate students largely only come in to contact with EHRs on clinical placements, without dedicated university education to enhance their competence. This means that graduates can encounter barriers in accessing and understanding digitally stored patient information when they leave education to work in a clinical environment.

Putting digital at the heart of learning

Health Innovation Manchester is co-ordinating a pan-Greater Manchester project between four Higher Education Institutions – The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Salford and the University of Bolton – exploring the feasibility and acceptability of using a small number of ‘real’ deidentified patient records in dedicated education in classroom/seminar settings.

This would provide students with the foundational understanding and skills required for providing excellent care in a digital world, ensuring that EHRs are used in a way that promotes efficient, patient-centred multi-disciplinary working as well as creating high-quality data sets that advances academic research and service improvement across Greater Manchester.

Listening to patient needs

Our work with patients has revealed that many are keen to see their data used to train future healthcare professionals if undertaken in a safe and controlled manner.

Key milestones to date include:

1. Developing a series of discussion groups with members of the public, health and care professionals, and underserved communities across Greater Manchester to capture a diverse range of perspectives on the use of EHRs in education.
2. Co-creating a participant information sheet and consent form with members of the public.
3. Navigating information governance requirements around using de-identified patient data in this way.

Further information and updates within the project will be shared at a future date.