Dive Brief:
- Over half of respondents (53%) to AmericanEHR Partners' 2014 survey released earlier this week found their EHR difficult or very difficult to use.
- EHRs vary significantly in terms of usability, according to the surveyed physicians.
- CMS findings from its 2015 hospital quality reporting validation pilot project show hospitals still face difficulties using EHRs to report electronic clinical quality measures, FierceHealthcare reported.
Dive Insight:
The report comes in the wake of when ONC recently announced almost all U.S. hospitals have adopted certified EHRs.
In the study, only about a third of physicians reported that their EHR was easy or very easy to use. In addition, 89% of those who were satisfied with their system also indicated that their system was easy to use. "Conversely, for those respondents who indicated that they were dissatisfied with their EHR system, a significant majority (90%) also reported that their EHR system was difficult or very difficult to use," the report stated.
The survey found wide variations in EHR usability. For example, most physicians said it was easy to record a smoking status (73%), to refill a prescription (69%), and/or generate and transmit a prescription (68%). However, about half reported it was difficult to import patient medication lists (51%), reconcile imported medication lists (49%), and create templates for specific conditions (46%).
Primary care physicians indicated they ease of use increased over time for all activities.
The research company surveyed 940 U.S. physicians.
The CMS pilot project involved 29 hospitals and was aimed at evaluating the accuracy and completeness of eCQMs data as well as hospitals' and the agency's readiness for supporting eCQM reporting and validation requirements.