Clinicians' Attitudes Toward Electronic Health Records in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

This study explored physicians' and nurses' attitudes towardan electronic health record (EHR) system and examined the features and factors that clinicians associated with the implementation of EHR systems. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire with high reliability and validity was adopted from existing research to gather clinicians' attitudes towardthe EHR system implemented at King Khalid UniversityHospital, one of the biggest hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A total of 438 questionnaire responses were received from the participants; 240 of them were physicians and 198 were nurses. The participants had a mean age of 43.7 years (standard deviation (SD) 17.1), 213 (52.7%) were femaleand 207 (47.3%) were male. Most participants (424, 96.8%) had one or more years of experience using computers, and a majority (304, 69.4%) had one or more years of experience using EHR systems.Most physicians and nurses (214, 89.5%vs. 174, 87.9%) were satisfied with their hospital's EHR systemand felt that the system was highly usable and had the potential to improve communication between staff, facilitate easy storage of and access to informationand lead to improved health outcomes for patients. The study found positive attitudes among clinicians concerning the quality of training and education around the new system (178, 74.2%of physiciansvs. 142, 71.7%of nurses; p > 0.05) and towardleadership during the transition to HER (222, 92.5%vs. 183, 92.4%). On the other hand, a majority of nurses reported that the EHR system took longer to use and increased their workload compared with the previous analogue system (115 (47.9%) vs. 133 (67.2%); p ≤ 0.01and 46.7% vs. 112 (64.1%)). A large majority of physicians and nurses surveyed (214(89.2%) vs. 167 (84.3%)) stated that clinicians should be consulted in the design of such systems as a way to maximise the potential benefits of EHRand mitigate extra workload demands. Most clinicians expressed overall satisfaction with the EHR system, but there were some areas of dissatisfaction among the respondents, such as increasing workload and stress among nurses. There is scope for further research to continue to explore physicians' and nurses' attitudes towardEHRsand for future experimental studies that examine the impact of EHRs on clinician workloads, patient health outcomesand quality of care.