BCcampus project aims to provide health program students with experiential learning opportunities

Glynda Rees, Rob Kruger, and Janet Morrison recently learned that their open textbook on Health Case Studies was the 4^th most popular book in BCcampus’ Open Textbook collection with 270,000 visits and 18,000 downloads already in the first half of 2018. In their own words, “we were gobsmacked.”

Post by Michelle Glubke, Senior Manager, Collaborative Projects

Working team meeting (L to R): Leanne Currie (UBC), Glynda Rees (BCIT), Janet Morrison (BCIT), Rob Kruger (BCIT) and Kamal Ahuja (Kreative Solutions Consulting)

About 4 years ago, a group of interested faculty from across B.C. came together to start researching and developing a solution to build healthcare student competency in using electronic health records in the classroom and simulation labs. Glynda Rees (BCIT), Joseph Anthony (UBC), Leanne Currie (UBC), Jason Min (UBC), Andre Kushniruk (UVIC), Nina Blanes (Douglas College), Patricia Visosky (Douglas College), and several other consultant faculty researched existing educational electronic health record (EHR) systems and created a rubric outlining technical and functional requirements for an interprofessional educational EHR that would provide students in healthcare with an experiential learning opportunity to help prepare them for practice in a healthcare environment using electronic health record systems.

The publication of the health case studies resource was the first milestone in the group’s quest to develop an educational electronic health record system. The content in the open textbook was achieved through BCIT leadership support and many hours of work with an interprofessional team of faculty at BCIT in collaboration with the Learning and Teaching Centre, IT, and the library. From there, with the BCIT contractor Kamal Ahuja, the group conceptualized and built a prototype that demonstrated EHR functionality. BCcampus has since secured funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training to work with the group to develop an open source pilot-ready prototype.

The project steering committee guiding the work is made up of the group referenced above, as well as additional members from post-secondary education institutions, health authorities, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training, and the Ministry of Health. The team has determined a defined scope of this project that will allow students to work on assigned patient cases and receive instructor feedback. One of the health case studies from the successful open textbook will be prepopulated in the prototype and guide the patient chart data, realizing the group’s vision from the beginning.

BCcampus is guiding the development of the pilot-ready prototype and, with the steering committee’s direction, will produce a sustainability plan for moving forward. Once the development is complete, participating institutions will manage the launch of a pilot phase aimed at a small group of faculty representing multiple disciplines and institutions.

Project Steering Committee members include:

Glynda Rees (BCIT), Cheryl Rees (BCIT), Rob Kruger (BCIT), Joseph Anthony (UBC), Jason Min (UBC), Andre Kushniruk (UVIC), Elizabeth Borycki (UVIC), Leanne Currie (UBC), Nina Blanes (Douglas College), Patricia Visosky (Douglas College), Elietha Bocskei (Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training), Katelyn Ranger (Ministry of Health), Carmen Moore (Interior Health), Lisa Bower (Vancouver Coastal Health)

Advisors to the Committee include:

Janet Morrison (BCIT), Kamal Ahuja (Kreative Solutions Consulting), Amanda Healey (UX Designer), and Christie Newton (UBC)

Notable quote:

“We see first hand the need for our students to integrate inputting, accessing, retrieving, and synthesizing electronic health data into their learning, clinical judgment, and decision making. We want to provide an experiential learning opportunity for our students that supports best practice leading to safe quality patient-centred care.” – Glynda Rees, Faculty, BCIT