Teaching principles of practice management and electronic medical record clinical documentation to third-year medical students

There is a call for increased implementation of electronic medical records (EMRs) across the United States. Systematic training regarding use of EMRs in medical education is limited. Similarly, medical students receive little training in practice management during their undergraduate years. Using a focused survey and standardized EMR-implementation workshop, we sought to assess medical student attitudes and self-reported skills regarding practice management, coding, and clinical documentation. We specifically sought to determine student familiarity and comfort with clinical documentation using both handwritten and electronic progress notes and to assess student familiarity with basic coding and productivity measures commonly used in a federal healthcare system.