Doctors say EHR wastes time

Doctors say they waste on average up to four hours per week using electronic health records (EHR), according to a research letter recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

EHR roundup

Researchers from the National Library of Medicine’s Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications analyzed a survey given to 411 internal medicine attending physicians and trainees who worked in an ambulatory practice and used an EHR system.

On average, researchers found that physicians lost 48 minutes of practice time per day using EHR. The survey also found that 89.8 percent of the respondents said that at least one data management function was slower after adopting EHR, while 63.9 percent found that note writing took longer. About a third of respondents reported it took longer to find and review medical record data with EHR than without and 32.2 percent said it took longer to read other clinician’s notes.

“The loss of free time that our respondents reported was large and pervasive and could decrease access or increase costs of care,” the researchers wrote.