What Doctors Really Think Of EHRs

Frank Irving | Medical Practice Insider | November 11, 2014

We've seen the numbers: About 8 in 10 office-based physicians have adopted some type of electronic health record, and about half have an EHR with advanced functionality. But if we dig deeper, how do doctors really feel about these systems?

Medical Practice Insider posed that question to a fistful of physicians from very different backgrounds. As presented in their comments below, doctors see a lot of room for improvement in the ways in which they interact with EHRs in the patient care setting.

"EHRs are a necessary evil. We can't run from technology but the reality is there is essentially no effective interoperability platform for practices to share this information. Even more distressing, the value of our time as practicing physicians is clearly minimized in the eyes of vendors and in terms of return on investment. We spend more time with EHRs than we ever did with the patient with a simple paper chart. The EHR does not improve care but over the long run will improve data and accountability....