title: Validation of an electronic system for recording medical student patient encounters.
abstract: The Liaison Committee for Medical Education requires monitoring of the students clinical experiences. Student logs, typically used for this purpose, have a number of limitations. We used an electronic system called Patient Tracker to passively generate student encounter data. The data contained in Patient Tracker was compared to the information reported on student logs and data abstracted from the patients charts. Patient Tracker identified 30% more encounters than the student logs. Compared to the student logs, Patient Tracker contained a higher average number of diagnoses per encounter (2.28 vs. 1.03, p<0.01). The diagnostic data contained in Patient Tracker was also more accurate under 4 different definitions of accuracy. Only 1.3% (9/677) of diagnoses in Patient Tracker vs. 16.9% (102/601) diagnoses in the logs could not be validated in patients charts (p<0.01). Patient Tracker is a more effective and accurate tool for documenting student clinical encounters than the conventional student logs.
authors.affiliation: University of Utah School of Medicine, USA.
authors.forename: Flory L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Nkoy
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.forename: Armand H Matheny
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Antommaria
authors.forename: Armand H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Antommaria
authors.forename: Christopher G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Maloney
mesh_terms: D005568:Forms and Records Control; D008487:Medical History Taking / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States