How Medical Societies Can Collaborate with Vendors to Improve EHR Utilization

Abstract

Summary The electronic health record (EHR) is a key component of patient interactions, quality improvement efforts, patient safety, and research endeavors. Yet medical societies have not focused on collaborative efforts with EHR vendors to improve their systems. In October 2018, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) formed a Clinical Informatics Committee to investigate the possibility of collaborating with EHR vendors to optimize systems. This committee surveyed the 2,718 clinical maternal-fetal medicine physician members to investigate EHR use, system problems, and future needs. The committee received 312 responses from 43 states. Practice patterns were diverse and generally represented the society membership. Responses from maternal-fetal medicine physicians revealed broad frustration with system usage, interfaces, and design provided by the EHR systems they used. In response to survey results, SMFM’s Clinical Informatics Committee formed subcommittees that collaborated with vendors’ EHR specialists to consider how to optimize EHR systems. Considerable progress was made: pushing society guidelines into the main EHR systems, adopting common term definitions to improve data quality, forming standardized clinical text statements for members and vendors to create common and consistent input for providers, and defining data within ultrasound systems to facilitate future interfaces involving information transfer from ultrasound equipment to ultrasound reporting systems and EHR systems. The success of the society’s efforts to improve EHR systems should encourage other societies to work with EHR vendors to enhance and optimize strategies to improve patient care, safety, and research.