By Kristi Hintz

Already a competitive, nationally ranked program, the College of Nursing at UT Knoxville is becoming even more cutting-edge, thanks to a creative new learning tool—iCare.

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.

So how does iCare work? In most hospitals and other medical facilities around the country today, a patient’s medical records are entered into a computer as an EHR. Only licensed medical practitioners are allowed to enter patient information into an EHR. While nursing students see EHRs during their clinical training, they don’t have the opportunity to work with them. And yet when they graduate, they are often expected to know how to use them.

iCare allows students to learn about EHR systems before graduating, instead of on the job. Working with a computerized manikin that can simulate a broad variety of injuries and illnesses, an instructor programs it with various symptoms. Using iCare, each student then examines the “patient”; records and retrieves data such as physical assessments, vital signs, and medication administration; and retrieves orders and diagnostic results for patient-care scenarios built into the program. Depending on the level of the student and the “patient’s” ailment, the instructor can set up the program to give the student prompts, such as “check for appendicitis.” The instructor then evaluates all the students on how well they do on their assessments.

Building the System

The quest for iCare started more than two years ago when Wyatt and Bell began researching existing applications and software used to educate nursing students on EHR systems. “We were having difficulties giving students experiences using health information technology, so we searched for systems to use in our simulation lab. Unfortunately, some of these systems cost up to $70,000 a year,” Wyatt says.

Facing a hefty price tag for purchasing an EHR system, Wyatt decided instead to build one. Through a relationship developed in previous years with Xueping Li in industrial and information engineering, Wyatt found just the help and expertise needed to take on such a project. While Wyatt and Bell’s expertise focused on usability testing and content—the look, feel, and flow—of the iCare application, Li and Indranoi did the programming.

Currently, iCare is in its first version and can be used to document and record the nursing care of simulated adult patients. Future versions will address children, infants, and patients with mental illness.

Testing the Market

With assistance from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation, further testing will occur with other universities across the U.S. The iCare team is also forming a company to take their product to the national market, with the aid of the UT Center for Entrepreneurial Growth in partnership with Tech2020.

“Testing iCare with a variety of users will promote its expansion to an audience beyond the UT Knoxville College of Nursing,” Wyatt explains. “Refinement and further testing of iCare will yield a program that offers unique features such as student reports, testing modes, and data-mining capabilities.

“Adding iCare to the curriculum means that not only are students getting vital experience in data retrieval, charting, and data entry, they are also getting a new educational tool to reinforce their skills in nursing assessment and critical-thinking. This program will help make them more competitive professionals,” Wyatt says.

In the near future, the researchers and developers anticipate expanding iCare to other health professional education programs like pharmacy and physical therapy that must ensure their graduates’ competence in data entry and retrieval and in managing healthcare records.

For more information, visit the iCare web site.