From the Dean
When you think of electronic health records, what comes to mind?
Tedious boxes to check? Screens requiring care and feeding better given to patients? And, for older nurses, a wish to return to paper charting?
I became a nurse before the era of EHRs, which, love them or hate them, revolutionized how we understand and track patient care and transform healthcare interactions into meaningful metrics. Perhaps because of my pre- and post-EHR vantage, and my research on the effect documentation burden has on clinician well-being and the work environment, I am intensely curious about their evolution—which is why I felt lucky to travel to Madison, WI, earlier this fall to visit Epic, the great grandmother of patient health records software and our system of record at UVA Health.
Epic’s “factory” was established by three people in a basement in 1979. Today, they have more than 12,000 employees and a records roster of 325 million patients worldwide. During our tour of their wildly creative space—complete with frog princes and Star Wars-themed rooms—we learned about Ambient, a new charting tool in development that uses AI to help keep nurses focused on the patients in front of them. Like its scribe-like cousin, DAX Copilot, now considered a clinician recruiting tool, Ambient is nursing-centric, detecting and charting the kinds of care being offered during a patient encounter, from routine assessments and treatment plans to discussions of advance directives, mental health counseling, and spiritual care.
"I never imagined EHRs could be thrilling to contemplate! But when our group of 17 UVA Health nurse leaders got to thoughtfully observe and advise Epic scientists on this newly launched ambient tool, we ourselves became part of its evolution. That’s exciting—and as it should be."
Dean Marianne Baernholdt
I never imagined EHRs could be thrilling to contemplate! But when our group of 17 UVA Health nurse leaders (my friends and colleagues from UVA Health’s University, Haymarket, Prince William, and Culpeper Medical Centers) got to thoughtfully observe and advise Epic scientists on this newly launched ambient tool, we ourselves became part of its evolution. That’s exciting—and as it should be.
When nurses speak, people listen—even when we show up in unexpected spaces. I want to thank my new friends, Eli and Claire, who interviewed me for the Girl Power Gurus podcast that they created to inspire young women and girls. While the interview was a departure for me, someone who’s pretty private, I enjoyed sharing stories to maybe connect with and inspire someone else.
May 2026 bring more of that: respectfully speaking up and out. Thank you, as always, for reading VNL.
Be well,
Marianne Baernholdt, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN
The Pew Charitable Trusts Dean and Professor
Dean of Professional Nursing, UVA Health