Early tech training builds clinical confidence
New research from The University of Texas at Arlington suggests that introducing electronic health record training earlier in nurse practitioner programs could help address a significant challenge facing the field—burnout among experienced clinicians who supervise and train future nurse practitioners.
Researchers said students who are more familiar with electronic health records require less on-the-job instruction, helping reduce the technology-related stress on the experienced clinicians who train them.
“By introducing students to electronic health records earlier, they feel more confident going into their clinical rotations and know what to expect,” said Rhonda Winegar, a practicing nurse practitioner and assistant professor in the family nurse practitioner graduate program at UT Arlington. “That helps reduce burnout for both students and the preceptors who supervise their clinical training.”
An electronic health record, or EHR, is a digital version of a patient’s comprehensive medical history that can be shared with key members of the healthcare team across healthcare settings. EHRs are designed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of patient care.
Dr. Winegar coauthored the study with Mari Tietze, the Myrna R. Pickard Endowed Professor at UTA’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation. Dr. Tietze is also the project lead for the academic EHR used by the students at UTA. The findings were published in The Nurse Practitioner.
The study tracked 121 graduate students enrolled in two UTA courses—Family I and Family II—and found that integrating electronic health record training into coursework led to moderate overall satisfaction with a 3.7 out of 5 rating and increased confidence in clinical readiness. Students with prior exposure to electronic health records reported significantly stronger perceptions of preparedness for clinical training.
“We feel like we're bringing the students into the real world as opposed to having their first experience with electronic health records be after graduation,” said Tietze, who also serves as UTA’s interim chief nurse officer and chair of graduate nursing.
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Reducing technology-related stress in the field is critical, as the U.S. surgeon general’s 2022 advisory on health worker burnout identified electronic health records as a key factor contributing to burnout. Research has also shown that burnout impacts one in five nursing students globally. In the workforce, Tietze said, one in three nurses leave their first position within the first year.
“We're either burning them out, or we haven't prepared them,” Tietze said. “Hospitals are telling us, ‘You’ve got to graduate nurses who are prepared for transition to practice.’”
Tietze said preparing students for the profession starts early. She pointed to emerging tools like ambient listening—where AI systems can capture patient-provider conversations and generate clinical notes—as evidence of how quickly expectations are changing.
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The study found that students in Family II, who had prior exposure to EHRs, consistently reported higher confidence and perceived benefits. Family I students, who were using EHRs for the first time, reported lower preparedness and greater frustration.
“We assumed that when students got to their clinical site, that's where they were going to gain their knowledge of how to use an electronic health record. Well, guess what? That doesn't happen all the time,” Tietze said. “It depends on the clinic. It depends on the preceptor. It was not a consistent process.”
Workflows vary by practice setting, Winegar said.
“The preceptor may be seeing patients and then later putting in all the orders, so the student may not see that,” she said.
Future research will focus on larger groups of students to determine the effectiveness of early EHR training more definitively.
About The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)
The University of Texas at Arlington is a growing public research university in the heart of Dallas-Fort Worth. With a student body of over 42,700, UTA is the second-largest institution in the University of Texas System, offering more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Recognized as a Carnegie R-1 university, UTA stands among the nation’s top 5% of institutions for research activity. UTA and its 300,000 alumni generate an annual economic impact of $28.8 billion for the state. The University has received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and has earned recognition for its focus on student access and success, considered key drivers to economic growth and social progress for North Texas and beyond.