Here are key insights from nine recent studies on EHRs:
1. A team-based intervention approach to improve EHR use and efficiency may help alleviate burdens that physicians report feeling when dealing with computer-based clerical work.
2. Differences between when and how physicians document information in the EHR may lead to inefficiencies such as documenting too much or too little of the patient's information.
3. Patients who read their clinicians' notes feel more in control of their medications and are more likely to take medications as prescribed.
4. Almost one third of ophthalmology patients' EHRs may not reflect the most accurate and current medication information.
5. More than half of patients (62 percent) consider web-based portal access to clinician-documented visit notes an important factor when searching for a new healthcare provider.
6. Limiting orders for gamma glutamyl transferase, an enzyme most commonly found in the liver, tests to only be made from the EHR search engine rather than from lists on the system's main screen can significantly reduce the number test orders made per month.
7. Access to a patient portal through the EHR can help improve patients' self-management of healthcare services, resulting in increased outpatient appointments and reduced emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
8. Restricting clinicians to viewing only one patient's record in the EHR, versus having multiple patients' records open at once, does not appear to have an impact on the number of incorrect patient orders placed.
9. Operating times for eye surgeries may take longer after a medical center implements a new EHR system.