Dive Brief:
- The use of electronic health records is valuable for medical students' training, but national guidelines should be put in place to ensure patient privacy, according to an article published in Academic Medicine.
- The study determined that medical students are accessing EHRs more frequently to track former patients' progress. However, it also found that this can potentially compromise the patient’s autonomy, and possibly even increase their anxiety about their medical care.
- Researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine are planning to develop formal guidelines based on current ethics and law, so they can be incorporated into medical student training. They would also be utilized for patient education, to help patients understand how exactly their EHRs are being used.
Dive Insight:
With the ever-growing emphasis on health data privacy and security, as well as the trend toward empowering patients in their medical care, it follows that regulation of EHR use for medical student training could protect the organization as much as the patient.
The study concludes that med students should obtain permission from patients to view their EHRs, and should be instructed to self-restrict their viewing to only those records essential for training. Finally, the study authors note that the issue will become increasingly important with completion of the planned Nationwide Health Information Network.