News Feature | July 23, 2014

VA's EHR Gains Top Marks With Physicians

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Rising Hospital Safety Scores In Health IT

A recent Medscape survey shows that while nearly 1 in 4 physicians use Epic for their EHR solution, the VA’s EHR got the highest marks for satisfaction.

Medscape recently surveyed 18,575 physicians across 25 specialties about their current EHR use. “They answered questions about their use of an EHR and rated their systems in terms of overall ease of use and other performance traits, as well as their satisfaction with the EHR vendor. Physicians also described how their EHR affects practice operations and patient encounters. The results give an eye-opening portrait of how EHRs are affecting medical practices,” writes Medscape.

According to iHealth Beat, these physicians rated their EHRs based on the following criteria:

  • ease of use
  • clinical workflow functionalities
  • interoperability
  • overall satisfaction with the product
  • vendor support

The survey discovered that of those surveyed, 80 percent used an EHR; 4 percent are in the process of implementing one, and 6 percent have plans to do so. Of the small percentage of those who do not use EHRs, the following reasons were cited: interference with patient provider relationship, high cost, and lack of sufficient meaningful use incentives.

The Department of Veterans Affairs' VA-CPRS ranked highest among those surveyed for user satisfaction, according to EHR Intelligence, despite the fact that only 3 percent of respondents use it. Other systems that ranked in the top ten include:

  • Practice Fusion
  • Amazing Charts
  • MEDENT
  • e-MDs
  • athenahealth
  • Nextech
  • Epic
  • eClinicalWorks
  • Sage

EHR Intelligence writes, “Overall, vendor satisfaction scores have dropped between 2012 and 2014, and half of providers range from neutral to very dissatisfied with the level of service they receive from their vendors.  While most agree that EHRs improve documentation, irritation over the impact of EHRs on patient encounters, including a decrease in face-to-face time with patients and an ongoing slump in productivity, remains an open wound.”