Competing discourses, contested roles: Electronic health records in medical education

Abstract

Introduction

The integration of electronic health records (EHRs) into medical education remains contested despite their widespread use in clinical practice. For medical trainees, this has resulted in idiosyncratic and often ad hoc methods of instruction on EHR use. The purpose of this study was to understand the currently fragmented nature of EHR instruction by examining discourses of EHR use within the medical education literature.

Methods

We conducted a Foucauldian critical discourse analysis to identify discourses of EHRs in the medical education literature. We found our texts through a systematic search of widely cited medical education journals from 2013–2023. Each text was analysed for recurring truth statements—claims framed as self-evidently true and thus not needing supporting evidence—about the role of EHRs in medical education.

Results

We identified three major discourses: (1) EHRs as a clinical skill and competency, emphasising training of physical interactions between learners, patients and computers; (2) EHRs as a system, emphasising the creation and facilitation of networks of people, technologies, institutions and standards; and (3) EHRs as a cognitive process, framed as a method to shape processes like clinical reasoning and bias. Each discourse privileged certain stakeholders over others and served to rationalise educational interventions that could be seen as beneficial in isolation yet were often disjointed in combination.

Conclusions

Competing discourses of EHR use in medical education produce divergent interventions that exacerbate their contested role in contemporary medical education. Identifying different claims for the benefits of EHR use in these settings allows educators to make rational choices between competing educational directions.