Developed by a UT team: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/de...er=yahoo_feeds

A type of medical records training software developed by a team at the University of Tennessee has been bought by a global producer of medical and nursing education aids and is to be put in use in nursing schools across the United States.

Called iCare, the software is an educational version of an electronic medical record (EMR) program and was developed by Xueping Li, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering; Tami Wyatt, an associate professor in the College of Nursing; Yo Indranoi, an engineering doctoral student; and Matthew Bell, a nursing graduate student.

Pennsylvania-based Wolters Kluwer Health has bought the software and plans to market it as a simulation support tool for nursing students, instructors and professionals. The software will allow students to get experience with the EMR programs used in medical facilities.

"Currently, there are more than 3,000 nursing schools in the U.S., and only 1 percent of them provide students with access to EMRs," Frank Mortimer, publisher for nursing education at Wolters Kluwer, said in a statement.

Hospitals, doctor's offices and other facilities use EMR programs to keep track of patients' medical records. However, while nursing students learn about these programs during their training, few get a chance to actually work with EMR programs before they are expected to use them in the workplace. The iCare software uses EMR programing as part of a simulated learning tool that allows students to practice documenting patient information.

As part of the transaction, UT faculty and students will get free use of the software for as long as it's on the market, and the UT inventors will share in the proceeds from sales of iCare.