Doctors sound off about EHR shortcomings
Physicians on the problem with EHRs, in their own words
Medical Economics conducted its 2019 EHR Scorecard in October, which included the question to physicians: “In your opinion, what is the biggest problem with EHRs across the marketplace?”Here is a sample of their responses, broken into six categories of criticisms.
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.”
