Black Book: Nurse dissatisfaction with inpatient EHRs at all-time high

Poor workflow, communication issues and other problems with electronic health records have increased nurse dissatisfaction of inpatient systems to 92 percent, an all-time high, according to the latest report from Black Book Market Research.

The survey of 13,650 U.S. nurses in Black Book's third quarter 2014 EHR Loyalty Poll, to be released later this month, found that 85 percent are struggling with "continually flawed" systems, and 88 percent blame CIOs/finance in selecting low performance systems based on government incentives, EHR pricing and cutting corners at the expense of quality of care. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of nurses in for-profit hospitals reported their IT department as "incompetent."

The survey also revealed that 94 percent of respondents don't believe that the EHR improved communication between nurse and the care team; 90 percent found that the EHR negatively impacted communication between nurses and patients. Roughly two-thirds (67 percent) had been taught workarounds to avoid "unresolved flaws" in their hospitals' systems.    

Most respondents also reported that the impact on nurse workflow was not considered highly enough in the final EHR selection decision; 98 percent said they thought such considerations were not part of their systems' design or other hospital technology decisions.

"Technology can help nurses do their jobs more effectively or it can be a highly intrusive burden on the hospital nurse delivering patient care," Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book Market Research, said in an announcement. "Many compounding nurse productivity problems of can be sourced to the failure of those selecting and implementing an EHR to involve direct care nurses in the process."

The report is similar to a recent study published earlier this year, which found that more than 40 percent of hospital executives, who presumably had at least some say in the choice of EHR system purchased, were unhappy with their systems. The systems also contain flaws that, when used by nurses, create documentation and billing issues.

To learn more:
- read the announcement