BACKGROUND

Electronic health record applications (EHRs) are robust applications that are utilized in medical facilities across a variety of aspects of a medical practice. EHRs are configured with functionality pertaining to patient intake, patient billing, insurance billing, prescription generation, maintaining a record of patient care over time, etc. EHRs are often used by healthcare workers at the point of care (i.e., at a time when the healthcare worker is providing care to a patient). For example, a healthcare worker may retrieve data from a patient record maintained by an EHR to relatively quickly ascertain problems being experienced by the patient, medications currently being taken by the patient, and so forth.

Despite the prevalence of EHRs in healthcare environments, many healthcare workers find EHRs difficult to use. Moreover, EHRs receive frequent version updates, which can sometimes modify the functionality of the EHR and/or the steps required to perform certain tasks within the EHR. Often, this will require a healthcare worker to exit or navigate away from an EHR client interface in order to perform an Internet search to determine how to perform a given task in the EHR. Other times, the healthcare worker will be forced to contact a service department of the provider of the EHR in order to determine how to perform a task. This results in lost productivity for the healthcare worker and the healthcare organization, as well as the provider of the EHR.

SUMMARY

The following is a brief summary of subject matter that is described in greater detail herein. This summary is not intended to be limiting as to the scope of the claims.

Described herein are various technologies pertaining to presenting training data to healthcare workers within an interface of an electronic health records application (EHR). More specifically, a computer-executable training application running on a server computing device is described herein, wherein the training application may be configured to execute alongside an EHR (or a supplement application to the EHR) and is configured to present training materials to a healthcare worker within an interface of the EHR. In general, a training material comprises instructions on how to perform a task using the EHR, such as issuing an electronic prescription for a patient. In exemplary embodiments, the training material may be a text-based document, an audio file, a video file, and/or an interactive tutorial.

By way of example, a healthcare worker may be utilizing an EHR on a client computing device and may decide that he or she requires instruction on how to perform a task using the EHR. In an exemplary embodiment, the client computing device can receive input from the healthcare worker which causes the client computing device to capture a context for the EHR. For example, the context can include at least one of an identifier for a clinical activity, an identifier for a specific GUI element within the EHR, an identifier for the healthcare worker, and an indication of job function of the healthcare worker. The client computing device can then transmit this context to the training application executing on the server computing device. Responsive to receiving the context, the training application can generate a list of training materials based upon the context, each training material in the list of training materials comprising instructions on how to perform a task within the EHR. The training application can then transmit the list to the client computing device for presentation in a graphical user interface (GUI) for the training application on the display of the client computing device, where the GUI for the training application can be displayed concurrently with a GUI for the EHR. Thus, in contrast with conventional approaches to providing training materials to users of an EHR, the EHR and training application systems described herein facilitate presentment of training materials to a healthcare worker using the EHR without requiring navigation away from the EHR interface.

The healthcare worker can review the list of training materials and decide that he or she wishes to access a first training material. The client computing device can receive input indicating that the healthcare worker wishes to access the first training material. Responsive to receiving the input, the client computing device can transmit an identifier for the first training material to the training application. Responsive to receiving the identifier for the first training material, the training application can retrieve the first training material and transmit the first training material to the client computing device for presentation on the display of the client computing device. The training application may also be configured to recommend certain training materials to the healthcare worker and to identify newly added training materials.

The systems and methods described herein provide various advantages over conventional systems for providing training materials pertaining to an EHR application. First, the training application provides convenient access to training materials within an interface of the EHR, such that training materials can be accessed by a healthcare worker using the EHR without navigating away from the EHR interface. This enables a healthcare worker to determine how to perform a task using an EHR more efficiently when compared with conventional approaches to software use training. Furthermore, the systems and methods described herein facilitate provision of training materials based upon context of the EHR in operation by the healthcare worker, thereby facilitating presentment of training materials that are relevant to a task that is desirably performed within the EHR interface. Additionally, by providing training materials in a variety of formats (e.g., written, visual, audio, interactive, etc.), the training application allows a healthcare worker to use his or her preferred learning medium. Still further, by providing recommendations and highlighting newly added training materials, the training application can keep a healthcare worker up to date with the most relevant information.

The above summary presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the systems and/or methods discussed herein. This summary is not an extensive overview of the systems and/or methods discussed herein. It is not intended to identify key/critical elements or to delineate the scope of such systems and/or methods. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

