Doctors like EHRs even less than they did five years ago

Jack McCarthy | Healthcare IT News | August 13, 2015

Whereas it's relatively safe to generalize that most technologies improve with each new iteration and user feedback yields changes that customers ultimately appreciate, one has to wonder if today's crop of electronic health records software are among the exceptions to that pattern of progress. Yes, the top-tier EHR vendors are for the most part improving certain aspects of their products, notably usability, workflow, UI, load and response times as well as other features designed to improve both the user experience and productivity.

But do the clinicians, physicians, nurses and specialists actually using the software like EHRs any more than they did five years ago? No, they do not, at least according to the results of a study published by the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians' AmericanEHR division. Physicians, rather, have are grown increasingly dissatisfied with their electronic health records software during the last five years.

"While EHR systems have the promise of improving patient care and practice efficiency, we are not yet seeing those effects," said Shari Erickson, vice president of American College of Physicians. The survey, "Physician Use of EHR Systems 2014," found that about half of all respondents reported a negative impact in response to questions about how their EHR system improved costs, efficiency or productivity, the American Academy of Physicians reported.