A partnership with Orlando Health is ensuring that students in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics are equipped to use one of the nation’s most common health management systems upon graduation.

Epic is an electronic health record system commonly used by hospitals and physician practices, with more than 325 million patients in its databases. To learn how to use Epic, you typically must be employed at a company that utilizes it. However, by teaming up with Orlando Health, students now have access to Epic via a training program created by Orlando Health information technology (IT) and clinical engineering (CE) learning leadership to give them a head start.

“Epic is an electronic health record system that’s used nationally by most of the big players in healthcare,” says Amanda Walden, senior lecturer of global health management and informatics. “The problem with the software is that you have to be sponsored by a facility to get training in it, and unfortunately, they do not offer educational versions of the software for our students to learn on. Having Epic training is a really big employment opportunity for our students.”

To help bridge this learning gap, faculty met with Orlando Health to discuss their training needs, and learn what the organization would find helpful for potential employees to know. Through this, Orlando Health built training modules for the health administration students.

“Students aren’t able to touch any real electronic health records hands-on, but Orlando Health has created some simulated environments for them with interactive screens for them to click on that look like you’re actually in the electronic health record,” Walden says. “We started with the bachelor’s in health informatics and information management program, and they created five different training programs for us.”

Students are also getting to learn some of the real tasks that employees need to do and why before simulating those tasks, Walden says.

“Epic is the backbone; it does much more than just health records,” she says. “It is not just the doctor’s notes. It includes X-rays, labs and financial data. It communicates with other electronic health record systems, and it communicates with insurance companies and to government oversight bodies for reportin requirements, so students are really learning how to utilize the system as they would in the workplace.”

Walden says the school is looking forward to continuing this partnership with Orlando Health, which is providing an invaluable experience for students.

“The response from students so far was very positive,” Walden says. “They felt it was beneficial. The first class to try it out was last spring, and they really enjoyed them. Even if they weren’t able to complete all the trainings during the class, they asked for the opportunity to go back in and do them later because they knew and saw the value of being able to have this skillset.”

She added that the program’s advisory board, made up of industry professionals, was also excited about the opportunity and the benefits it provides.

“Together, Orlando Health and UCF bridge knowledge and care, fostering healthcare innovation and advancing medical informatics for a brighter future,” according to a statement from Orlando Health IT/CE learning leadership. “By collaborating and partnering for progress in medical informatics, we are proud to design custom training based on the needs of UCF students.”