(PDF) Effectiveness of an Electronic Health Record

Impact of Electronic Health Record on Physician Productivity, Provider Burn Out and
solutions for the future
Paul Labeodan
University of Illinois at Chicago

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Abstract
One of the major technological advancements in the healthcare domain is Electronic
Health Records. In spite of the benefit of Electronic Health Records, there is an imbalance in
its implementation. Increased rates of documentation and regulatory requirements have led to
physician burnout and dissatisfaction. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of
electronic health records in practice management of physicians in hospital settings. The paper
will discuss strategies that will be helpful to address these issues while increasing quality of
care. In order to perform this research, the research will employ thematic analysis of data
and, based on the evolved theme, the research will try to draw the best possible conclusion.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Methodology..............................................................................................................................5
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................6
EHRs and its healthcare implications....................................................................................6
EHRs and physicians’ burnout...............................................................................................7
EHRs and physicians productivity.........................................................................................9
Barriers in acceptance and implementation of EHRs..........................................................10
Conclusion and Recommendation............................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Promotion, adoption and application of health information technology (HIT), is one of the
major priorities among the U.S. health policy makers. It is regarded as an important medium
of managing the healthcare costs and quality. The U.S. started adopting Electronic Health
Records (EHRs) during the challenging economic times in the U.S. hospitals (Jha, 2010).
During the tenure of 2008-2009, basic and comprehensive adoption of EHRs increased
substantially. The electronic medical record (EMR) or electronic health record (EHR) is
regarded as an integral part of hospital-based patient care (Babbott et al., 2013). EMR and
EHR implementation has significantly increased in the past years. A basic electronic health
record includes demographics of the patient, list of problems, clinical notes, medication list,
prescription printing, and laboratory test results and radiology reports. Comprehensive EHRs,
which are fully functional, also contain medical history of the patient, a detailed illustration
of the follow-up notes, ordering reports of medicines and laboratory tests, latest prescriptions,
electronic images and other clinical decision support tools (Babbott et al., 2013). The
majority of the hospitals, however, did not employ the required standards needed to
implement EHRs in the hospital setting in a comprehensive manner (Babbott et al., 2013).
According to Jha (2010), the EHR is beneficial, but imbalance in proper implementation has
led to physician burnout arising from increased regulatory requirements and documentation.
According to Shanafelt, Dyrbye, Sinsky, Hassan, and Satele (2016), EHRs have increased the
workload of the doctors as they are now forced to spend extra time in documenting the
information electronically under the strict scrutiny of hospital policies. This is turn
hasreduced the time in hands-on patient interaction.
The aim of this paper is to measure the impact of EHRs in administrative management
and physicians’ productivity under hospital settings. The paper will also try to shed light on