This resident advocacy project highlighted the importance of educating physicians-in-training on efficient, effective use of the electronic health record.

While every resident learns to become efficient at completing their work using the EHR, many residents fall into a single pattern. Often, the lessons from supervising residents are outdated and do not take advantage of newer, more effective tools. Additionally, many residents learn how to efficiently get work done, but not how to efficiently mine the EHR for early clues that a patient may be getting sicker or for key information that may be tucked away in a note.

As a result of this project, we learned that simulation is the best way to teach these skills. Feedback from residents has been very positive, and it has been very gratifying as a senior resident to see more interns using some of the tools we try to demonstrate. It is hoped that this platform will be used to generate a larger database of cases in order to provide a more varied curriculum to residents.

About Resident Senior Advocacy Projects: At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Community Pediatrics and Advocacy Program (CPAP) integrates an expanded focus on advocacy and community-based pediatrics into pediatric resident training. Senior Advocacy Projects are the capstone of the CPAP curriculum and training.