Epic (also called PennChart) is the electronic health record (EHR) system utilized throughout Penn Medicine’s hospitals, health centers, and health facilities. In order to enhance students’ academic experiences, the School of Nursing has partnered with Penn Medicine to utilize the same Epic platform but with simulated patients. To access Epic, all users must meet the hospital training and security protocols, and Penn Medicine has the right to revoke a user’s access due to non-compliance at any time.

To maintain access to Penn Medicine systems, users are expected to follow hospital (HIPAA) and academic (FERPA) privacy guidelines as they would with accessing real protected health information.

Access to PennChart or other Penn Medicine systems containing protected health information for clinical rotation is administered by Penn Nursing Compliance.

Account Requirements:

Penn Medicine Network Accounts

For undergraduate students, accounts will remain active and access will be maintained until graduation. For faculty, accounts will only remain active for the current semester they are teaching, and they will need to maintain access through specific training requirements.

Dual Penn Medicine Affiliation

Penn Nursing faculty or student affiliations are currently secondary to direct affiliation with Penn Medicine (employment, research, internship).

If primary Penn Medicine affiliation is terminated while having an active Penn Nursing affiliation, Penn Nursing affiliation will need to be re-established.

If primary affiliation with Penn Medicine changes, users will need to contact course leadership.

Training Requirements:

For undergraduate students, completion of the assigned Knowledge Link courses is required. These courses are assigned annually from Penn Nursing Compliance.

For faculty, completion of the orientation to Epic from a hospital system is required. Additionally, if faculty do not interact with the system for six months and beyond, the account is reset, and some education will need to be retaken. If there is a lapse in interaction for over a year, they will need to retake the two-day orientation.

System Requirements:

Before accessing the Epic environment, users will need a Mac or PC patched with the most recent operating systems. Users will also need to install Google Chrome, the current version of Citrix Receiver, and the Duo Push Notification and Authentication that is linked to all Penn Medicine accounts.

If you are having trouble loading the system or if you are experiencing formatting issues in Google Chrome, it may be a good idea to clear your browser cache. Follow the steps below to clear your Chrome cache:

1. Open a new Chrome browser window.
2. At the top right of the page, click this symbol:  
3. Click More tools -> Clear browsing data…
4. At the top, choose a time range. To delete everything, select All time.
5. Next to "Cookies and other site data" and "Cached images and files," check the boxes.
6. Click Clear data.
   
   

Getting Help:

Your Penn Medicine account password must be changed every 90 days. If you are experiencing difficulties with your Penn Medicine username and password or if you have received a Duo Mobile login request that you did not initiate, please contact the Penn Medicine Service Desk at 215-662-7474.

Note: To best address your intended inquiry, please state the following to the help technician: “I need help with my Penn Medicine account.” Do not mention Epic, as this will only direct you to Epic customer support. 

If you are having difficulties accessing Epic from a Penn Nursing computer, please contact the Nursing ITS Service Desk at 215-898-5981.