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iCare/DocuCare

iCare is an educational software program that integrates electronic health records (EHR) into a simulated learning tool for students. Developed by Tami Wyatt and Matt Bell of the College of Nursing and Xueping Li and Yo Indranoi of the College of Engineering (Industrial & Information Engineering), iCare helps prepare future nurses for the demands and evolving healthcare climate of the 21st century.

Why was iCare developed? In most hospitals and other medical facilities around the country, a patient’s medical record is entered into a computer as an EHR. In most cases only licensed/certified practitioners are allowed to enter patient information into an EHR. While a majority of nursing students are exposed to EHR's during their clinical training, in most cases they aren't afforded the opportunity to document care electronically within them. However, upon graduation and licensure, nurses are often expected to document their care electronically on their first clinical day. This situation is suboptimal for many reasons and yet commonplace in nursing education today. iCare was authored by educators, for educators, to remedy this situation.

How does iCare work? iCare allows students to learn about EHR systems within the framework of their current educational curriculum both in the classroom and simulation environments. iCare was designed to mirror the functionality of currently used EHR's with educational tools built into the documentation experience. Specifically within simulation education environment nursing students can electronically document their "care" using iCare. Additionally nursing students can record and retrieve data pertinent to that "care", such as physical assessments, vital signs, and medication administration. They can also retrieve physician orders and diagnostic results for the patient-care scenarios built into the iCare software program. Nursing faculty can build their own patient-care scenarios and are then afforded the opportunity to evaluate their students on their respective documentation of physical assessments as well as general EHR documentation skills.

For more information, please visit http://thepoint.lww.com/lwwdocucare