Here are key insights from nine recent studies on EHRs:
1. The leading factor to predict EHR user satisfaction among clinicians is the quality of system training they received.
2. Boston Medical Center implemented an EHR-based tool that serves as a social determinants of health screener to identify patients' unmet needs.
3. Patients who receive their medical records and discharge prescription on a USB flash drive rather than a handwritten note may experience fewer post-discharge medication errors.
4. Problems in EHRs, such as outdated information and incomplete notes, can cause treatment delays as well as safety and communication issues between chemotherapy patients and providers.
5. First-year physicians spend, on average, 43 percent of the day interacting with patients' EHRs.
6. Programming a hospital's EHR with clinical decision support for gastrointestinal testing can decrease inappropriate testing by 46 percent.
7. EHR downtime does not affect 30-day mortality rates.
8. Standardizing patients' last names and address information in EHRs can lead to more effective matching of an individual's health records.
9. An EHR extension that determines when a patient may benefit from preventive therapy may be more effective than prescribing based solely on education.