Physicians’ Concerns About Electronic Health Records: Implications And Steps Towards Solutions

Abstract

Policy makers and professional organizations have become increasingly concerned about physician professional satisfaction. As in the managed care expansion of the 1990s, recent health reforms, including but not limited to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), have begun to have effects “in the exam room,” changing how patients, physicians, and allied health professionals interact. To better understand how these reforms are affecting patient care and other aspects of physicians’ professional lives, we recently conducted an in-depth study of professional satisfaction using a combination of open-ended interviews and written surveys with physicians and other professionals in 30 practices (encompassing 55 distinct practice sites) across the United States. We found several factors that enhanced physician professional satisfaction in 2013, including: perceived ability to deliver high-quality patient care reasonable control over the environment, pace, and content of work sharing clinical values with organizational leadership respectful professional relationships incomes perceived as predictable and fair Intense Physician Reaction To Electronic Health Records At the time of our study, the ACA did not yet seem to have measurable effects on physician professional satisfaction, either positive or negative. Instead, regulations stemming from the ARRA—specifically, incentives and penalties to adopt electronic health records (EHRs)—have provoked widespread and intense responses from practicing physicians. Despite recognizing the value of EHRs in concept, many physicians are struggling to use their EHRs, which they describe as negatively impacting patient care in several important ways and undermining their professional satisfaction.