Nurses Not Included In Hospital EHR Planning

Nurses are being left behind when it comes to planning and implementing electronic health records. That’s a core finding in the third quarter 2014 Black Book EHR Loyalty survey being published later this month.  The survey of nearly 14,000 U.S. nurses found that 98 percent of licensed RNs say that they have never been included in hospital technology decisions or design. And, within for-profit hospital facilities, just 15 percent of the surveyed nurse respondents believe their IT department that supports the EHR is knowledgeable and receptive to nurses’ suggestions in improving electronic documentation.

In addition, dissatisfaction with inpatient EHR systems among nurses has reached an all-time high of 92 percent. Disruption in productivity and workflow has also negatively influenced job satisfaction according to 84 percent of surveyed nurses, while 85 percent of state they are struggling with continually flawed EHR systems. Further, 88 percent blame financial administrators and CIOs for selecting low-performance systems based on EHR pricing, government incentives and “cutting corners at the expense of quality of care.”

Moreover, 84 percent of surveyed nursing administrators in not-for-profit hospitals, and 97 percent of counterparts in for-profit hospitals confirm that the impact on nurses’ workloads, including the efficient flow of direct patient care duties, were not considered highly enough in their administration's final EHR selection decision.  “Although the inpatient EHR replacement frenzy has calmed temporarily, the frustration from nursing EHR users has increased exponentially,” said Doug Brown, managing partner for Black Book Market Research, in a written statement. “The meaningful use financial incentives for hospitals have many IT departments scurrying to implement these EHRs without consulting direct care nurses, according to the majority of those polled by Black Book.”...