EPR (Electronic Patient Record) Laboratory - Simulated Environment to Learn about a Hospital EPR System

The "Electronic Patient Record (EPR) Laboratory" is a computer based self-learning system developed for students to acquire practical skills and knowledge required to deal with EPRs. The system is designed to supplement conventional lectures on health information systems given as part of our undergraduate curriculum. Using the Laboratory, the students may learn not only operations of EPR systems but also the subjects connected with patient information handling, including privacy, security and health information ethics. The EPR Laboratory is composed of an eLearing system and an EPR system. The learning materials are arranged in units in the eLearning system, and in each unit, the student learns the materials and the EPR operations through practice. Tests are given at each end of unit, and if a student failed a test, the system shows which questions were answered incorrectly and indicates which parts of the unit he/she should review. For this purpose, we introduced a structure to the learning materials based on an information model. In this paper, the overview of the system, the simulated environment to learn patient flow, information flow and hospital workflow, fundamental EPR operations, and structured learning materials for the test and review cycle are described.