EHR Tutor is an industry-leading academic EHR training program built by nurse educators for nurse educators. The solution was originally created by Diane Yeager, RN, a 16-year nursing education veteran who has always been an advocate for the use of technology in education. She also created the website FreeNurseTutor.com while working as an Instructor, but when she started to explore the current Electronic Health Record Systems (EHRs) available for nursing and allied health schools, she realized there were no truly affordable, user-friendly options on the market that were flexible enough to fit the needs of different programs and teaching styles.
Thus, Yaeger developed EHR Tutor. Her goal was to provide a solution to electronic charting that’s not only extremely affordable but incredibly easy to navigate. She explains that, as any instructor knows, if a program is difficult to operate getting faculty to buy in is impossible. For this reason, she and her team designed a system that is so intuitive for both instructors and learners, that the solution can be used on the same day of training.
As EHR Tutor has grown and added more features for our users, the solution stuck to Yaeger’s fundamental beliefs – unprecedented support, affordability, and ease of use. In 2016, the company announced the release of a new “Scenes” feature as a way to create unfolding scenarios in clinical simulation. This meant that, with a single click of a button, lab staff can add orders, lab results and other data sets to a patient to match the scenario as it unfolds.
“Unfolding scenarios in simulation is a hot topic, but there is no easy way to show unfolding patient data as a lab progresses. The manikins on the market respond to show signs of anaphylactic shock in response to improper medication, but the chart showing the patient’s information will not reflect the patient’s distress,” Yaeger explained. “Where else do students find the proper information including updated orders and lab results if not in the chart? To have realistic simulation, we need the chart to reflect the changing scenario as well as the manikin and it needs to update in real-time, not make believe time.”
Another EHR Tutor feature update launched around this time included multidisciplinary charting for interprofessional simulations, an Activity Library that allows activities/labs to be saved as templates, and the framework for additional charting including Community Health, Occupational Therapy, and Physical Therapy. Then, in 2018 EHR Tutor joined the ATI Nursing Education family, a company that has been part of nursing education for 20 years. EHR Tutor decided to do this because ATI works with thousands of nursing programs across the country, and the company’s resources and relationships offer the potential to make EHR Tutor an even better teaching tool for partners and their learners..
The solutions help educators prepare learners for the rigors of the clinical environment using Electronic Health Records, and can be implemented during healthcare simulation labs, clinical rotations, and within the classroom. The goal of the training solution is to provide realistic charting experience with all standard charting as well as specialty items including behavioral health, labor and delivery, newborn, pediatric, outpatient, and home healthcare modules.
To create powerful, flexible charting, EHR Tutor allows learners to chart electronically for healthcare simulations, clinicals, and the classroom. With EHR Tutor, they can build their own patient scenarios from the ground up or start customizing by editing one of our pre-built patients. EHR Tutor’s web-based systems allow for maximum accessibility and work on any computer, tablet, or smartphone. Increasing convenience, the solution is also compatible with all major operating systems and browsers.
There is also a barcode scanning functionality included so that all the clinical simulation learner needs is a standard barcode scanner. Barcodes are automatically generated based on patient orders and can be printed from a traditional printer. Add and remove orders at any time.
After training, the learner will receive live support on-demand, as the EHR Tutor support site features a robust list of video guides and tip sheets. There are pre-built learning activities and regular webinars that help make implementation more simple. “With EHR Tutor, your faculty is never alone,” the company states.
Further, with an included Patient Chart Library, the educator can choose from over 100 pre-built patient charts or create their own. Each patient’s chart comes as a template — and belongs entirely to the educator. Thus, they can assign the same, clean patient chart to any number of learners or classes. Additionally, as the dates on the template patients roll, the educator can use the same chart year after year without doing extra data entry.
According to the 2015 white paper titled “Preparing Nurses for Medication Administration with Realistic Simulation,” when considering increasing simulation hours, replacing clinical time with realistic, quality simulation is imperative. The paper explains that learners must be given context rather than solely being directed to complete skills and that this can be done by sharing a patient chart in an electronic charting system, like EHR Tutor, in order to give a “whole patient” view of a scenario.
“To create a realistic simulation environment for medication administration it’s important to have two things: an electronic charting system and a set of practice medications. EHR Tutor and Wallcur conveniently integrate so you can now use any Practi-Meds along with the full MAR capability of EHR Tutor including barcode scanning functionality,” the paper states.
Also noted in this paper is that instructors can use EHR Tutor’s prebuilt patients for clinical simulation, edit the prebuilt patients to include additional orders, or create patient scenarios from scratch. The paper explains that once a patient chart is chosen for the healthcare simulation, learners will be able to assess allergies, view orders, and review the patient’s situation beforehand. Those skills can help not only with NCLEX pass rates but with basic medication administration skills like those tested with the MAE mentioned in the introduction as well.
“Secondly, the combination of EHR Tutor and Practi-Meds allows students to physically do each step of the medication administration process. Instructors can make sure to show a patient chart in EHR Tutor with orders for the Practi-Meds purchased for that lab. Orders can always be added or edited to fit the practice pills, vials or patches on hand,” the paper states.
