An
EHR is actually a digital collection of a patient's health records
created in one or more consultations in every care delivery system. Many
physicians are not happy with their electronic health records. The top
EHR vendors are improving various areas of their products’ workflow,
usability, UI, load and response times along with the other features
that are built to enhance both the user experience and the productivity.
However, do the physicians, specialists, and nurses really utilize the
EHR any longer than they used to do 5 years ago? Based on a latest study
done by the American Medical Association (AMA) along with AmericanEHR
Partners, only 34% of doctors stated that they have been pleased or very
pleased with their electronic health record in 2014, as compared to 62%
in the year 2010.
The
study results states that 42% of the doctors believe that their
electronic health records capability to enhance efficiency had been
challenging to very challenging, 72% think that their electronic health record
hardly made any difference to reduce their workload, 54% stated that
their electronic health record raised the operating expenses, 43%
reported that they had not got over with the workflow challenges
regarding their electronic health record. To be eligible for meaningful
use incentives, doctors are required to follow given workflows that are
not really efficient. Probably users were pleased 5 years back prior to
the arrival of the more difficult Stage 2 needs.
Many
EHRs usually are not as attractive, intuitive and simple to navigate
just as widely used websites such as Facebook & Amazon or even a lot
of smartphone applications. Also the many tech-adverse medical
professionals are quite used to the slicker interfaces which are
traditional with mainstream applications. It could then be one of the
reasons why they become annoyed by the EHR's relative clumsiness. Many
of the EHRs are very pricey to use and maintain. Doctors usually
complain about EHRs being ineffective, affecting the provider-patient
relationship and also failing to minimize workflow. In spite of MU
incentives, lots of physicians are still not able to have a positive
ROI.
The
study even explained a direct connection with physician satisfaction
along a period of time a doctor utilized the EHR. Like for example,
amongst the doctors who have been inducted into the system for 3 years
or less, merely 25% claimed some amount of satisfaction. The amount of
satisfaction rose to 50% in doctors who have made use of their EHR for 5
or more years. During the last 5 years, adoption of EHR has risen
rapidly and also developed a significant growth of new EHR users. Since
practices are moving towards digital world today, workflow usually
decreases since physicians find it difficult to understand new software
and also adapt workflows. Because of the difficulties in using an EHR,
it is hardly unusual that early on users were not so satisfied. But if
experienced users are usually more satisfied, it appears fair to believe
that we are going to notice satisfaction ratings rise in the years to
come.
Then
again the concern of whether we should worry about physicians not being
satisfied with their EHRs. Michelle Ronan Noteboom, Contributing writer
for many publications and health IT vendors, mentioned in one of her
articles that she is at opinion that doctor satisfaction do matter,
although not as much as enhancing the standard of patient care. Patient
care is going to be improved once all the providers get access to
detailed and accurate documentation. Usually, the records of patient
from a provider may integrate with the records by some other provider to
make one longitudinal record which is easy to understand and gives a
complete picture associated with patient's health history.
Certainly
we're nowhere near to getting that goal however the chart notes which
the physicians are usually generating in the EHRs these days are giving
the foundations for the single, interoperable patient record. Doctors
might reason that their usage of EHR has been doing very little to
enhance patient care yet such point of view can be a little
narrow-minded. Will it matter when physicians don't like their EHRs?
Must we make an effort to identify the types of their unhappiness with
EHRs and do everything possible which will make physicians happier?
Otherwise must we direct your attention towards the patient and devote
ourselves in doing whatever it requires getting the aim of the single,
interoperable patient record which improves the care quality?
With
10+ years' of demonstrated experience in developing customized, robust
and secure software solutions for physicians, healthcare ISVs, hospitals
& provider networks in the US and Canadian Health IT industries,
Mindfire Solutions has to be your ideal development partner for Healthcare Software development.
