Doctors sound off about EHR shortcomings

Lack of user-friendliness

·      “These records are not organized the way doctors have been taught to organize patients’ notes for at least 40 years.”

·      “Cumbersome systems, not designed with users in mind.”

·      “Have to click too many times to find the information I need. Problem list not set up to be useful clinically, only designed to get ICD codes right.”

Exchanging information with other EHR systems

·      “None speak to each other. My office EHR can’t be used by my hospital. It’s ludicrous.”

·      “Inability to share information causes profound negative impact on visit flow and workload.”

·      “Lack of proper interfaces for import/export of data.”

Impact on productivity

·      “My productivity has taken a permanent hit because documentation takes so much longer now.”

·      “Productivity killer”

·      “Takes longer to enter data to comply with insurance requirements, which takes away efficiency and takes longer to see patients and complete charts.”

Doctor-patient relationship

·      “Interferes with doctor-patient interaction because of data entry, too many clicks to search chart, need to ‘capture’ bullet points to bill a certain level of care.”

·      “Far too much time on the computer, and less face-to-face time with patients.”

·      “They all fail to grasp the most important aspects of the doctor-patient relationship: the physical exam, the questioning of the patient and the ability of the physician to shut up and listen.”

Expense

·      “Continued cost to maintain/upgrade. The vendors know we are forced to use EHRs, so they stick it to us.”

·      “Contracts and price are not favorable to physicians. The bundling of EHR,  practice management and billing leaves physicians vulnerable when not pleased with services.”

·      “Cost of systems and maintenance, need to hire additional staff (scribes).”

Systems not designed for patient care

·      “EHR is useful for billing and tracking, not caring for people with diseases who don’t fit into a template.”

·      “EHRs are intended for billing and for population health. They are not designed to help care for the individual patient.”

·      “Seems to be driven mainly by insurers, government and funders’ need to audit and surveil clinicians and not in the interests of providing better patient care.”