Dive Brief:
- Unhappiness with EMRs is climbing among senior health care executives, according to a survey by Premier Inc. The research concluded that 41% of C-suite respondents are either dissatisfied or indifferent toward their EMR systems.
- According to Premier, providers need a solution that integrates clinical, financial and operational data across hospitals and health systems, but most EMR systems can't do that.
- Dissatisfaction is rising despite the fact that almost half of survey respondents said that their largest capital investment this year will be in IT.
Dive Insight:
It seems as though health leaders have very good reasons to be dissatisfied with their EMRs. Though these systems have improved substantially over the past several years, they still pose problems with availability, interoperability and security. System downtime is a particular pain point. Unplanned downtime can be extremely difficult for clinicians to cope with with, executives say. Despite widespread acceptance of EMRs, it appears that vendors have many improvements to make.