Awareness and Use of Electronic Health Records in Entry-Level Occupational Therapy and Occupational Therapy Assistant Curricula

Abstract

The Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) requires programs to instruct entry-level occupational therapy (OT) and occupational therapy assistant (OTA) students in technology that may include electronic documentation systems, distance communication, virtual environments, and telehealth (standard B1.8). At this time, there are no publications describing if and how electronic health record (EHR) instruction is implemented in entry-level OT and OTA programs. The purpose of this study is to investigate awareness and use of EHRs in entry-level OT and OTA curricula. Respondents from 76 nationally accredited entry-level programs (two OT doctoral, 24 OT masters, two OT combined bachelors/masters, and 48 OTA) completed a survey. The findings showed inconsistent and incomplete EHR instruction in entry-level OT and OTA education. This study provides a baseline for investigating best practices in EHR education for entry-level OT and OTA students. KeywordsCurricula, education, electronic health records, occupational therapy, occupational therapy assistant, teaching Cover Page FootnoteThe authors would like to thank the following persons for their contributions: Dr. Catherine Piersol, PhD, OTR/L, for serving as a clinical informatics content expert; Dr. Mary Jane Mulcahey, PhD, OTR/L, for providing guidance on developing research objectives, outcomes, measurement tools, and criterion for analyzing results; Dr. Susan Toth-Cohen, PhD, OTR/L, for providing objective feedback as an independent faculty reviewer; Dr. Carolyn Giordano, PhD, for functioning as an independent survey consultant to ensure face validity; and Jennifer Fisher Wilson, MS, ELS, for providing editorial feedback on this manuscript. directors and their representatives using contact information obtained from college and university websites. Credentials Display InstrumentationThe survey questions were developed from a review of the literature related to EHR competencies in health education. The survey content focused on identifying (a) if and how entry-

Initial steps for integrating academic electronic health records into clinical curricula of physical and occupational therapy in the United States: a survey-based observational study

“…Scarce literature has been published about integrating AEHR into didactic rehabilitation curricula, specifically problem-based learning (PBL). Still, the current findings emphasize the importance of further steps in this direction [ 6 , 7 ].…”