Only One in Four Doctors Very Satisfied With Electronic Health Record System

FRIDAY, Aug. 30, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Only one-fourth of family physicians report being very satisfied with their electronic health record (EHR), according to a study published online Aug. 29 in JAMA Network Open.

A. Jay Holmgren, Ph.D., from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues measured family physician satisfaction with their EHR, EHR usability, and the association of EHR usability with satisfaction and burnout. The analysis included survey responses from 2,067 family physicians seeking American Board of Family Medicine recertification in 2022.

The researchers found that 27.2 percent were very satisfied, 37.5 percent were somewhat satisfied, 16.7 percent were somewhat dissatisfied, and 9.6 percent were very dissatisfied with their EHR. The highest usability was seen for readability of information, with 26.3 percent of respondents rating it as excellent. Usefulness of alerts had the lowest usability, with 12.7 percent of respondents rating it as excellent. Good or excellent usability for entering data (β = 0.09), alignment with workflow processes (β = 0.11), ease of finding information (β = 0.14), and usefulness of alerts (β = 0.11) were associated with physicians being very satisfied with their EHR, and being very satisfied with the EHR was associated with reduced frequency of burnout (β = −0.64).

“One-fourth reported being somewhat or very dissatisfied, a concerning finding amplified by the inverse association between EHR satisfaction and burnout,” the authors write.

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