EHRs Benefit, Challenge PCPs
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
EHRs benefit primary care practices but can also create challenges for care teams.
According to Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association study, while EHRs have improved teamwork at primary care practices they can also pose challenges because of system limitations.
EHR Intelligence reports researchers discovered through interviews with personnel that EHR use was most beneficial in enhancing communication and help to redefine team roles and task delegation. This improvement came through better access to patient information, instant messaging, in-chart notes, phone messages, and task assignments.
Access to patient information via EHR was also helpful to non-physicians who could then play a larger role in patient care and allow physicians to concentrate on other tasks. All of these factors led to greater teamwork and better care.
iHealth Beat reports, however, the study also found some limitations to team care caused by system limitations of the EHR. Some respondents pointed out that EHRs lack management functionality or tools, which caused team members to need to use separate IT systems to track patients’ progress and document interactions with patients. Others cited registry functionality, with about 20 percent of practices lacking registry functionality and some choosing not to use the feature because of limited search capabilities. Standardized EHR data entry functionality and logging systems for data accountability were also cited as areas that need to be improved upon.
The study abstract says, “EHR vendors in the United States need to work alongside practicing primary care teams to create more clinically useful EHRs that support dynamic care plans, integrated care management software, more functional and interoperable practice registries, and greater ease of data tracking over time.”
“To maximize the potential synergy between primary care teamwork and EHRs, clinical workflows need to evolve alongside EHR customization and development of new functionalities, where possible. Practices also need coaching and support to adapt clinical workflows to accomplish team-based tasks and to customize EHRs to match those workflows,” the authors conclude.