Use of EHR-based simulation to diagnose aetiology of information gathering issues in struggling learners: a proof of concept study

Learners who struggle with clinical decision making are often the most challenging to identify and remediate. While for some learners, struggles can be directly traced to a poor knowledge base, for many others, it is more difficult to understand the reason for their struggles. One of the main component of effective decision making is access to accurate and complete clinical information. The electronic health record (EHR) is the main source of clinical information and, with its widespread adoption, has come increased realisation that a large fraction of users have difficulty in effectively gathering and subsequently processing information out of the EHR. We previously documented that high-fidelity EHR-based simulation improves EHR usability and, when combined with eye and screen tracking, generates important measures of usability. We hypothesised that the same simulation exercise could help distinguish whether learners had difficulty in knowledge, information gathering or information processing. We report the results of the first three struggling learners who participated in this exercise. In each case, the simulation was able to ‘diagnose’ the aetiology for the learners’ struggle and assist in formulating an appropriate solution. We suggest that high-fidelity EHR-based simulation can be a powerful tool in the standard approach to understanding struggling learners.