AMA Wants Better EHR Technology

CHICAGO — The American Medical Association (AMA) is calling for solutions to electronic health record (EHR) systems that will make them more user friendly.

The AMA said physicians are not happy with EHRs because the technology requires too much time-consuming data entry, leaving less time for patients, according to a study that the association did with the RAND Corporation in October 2013. Physicians that were surveyed expressed concern that current electronic health record technology interferes with face-to-face discussions with patients, requires physicians to spend too much time performing clerical work and degrades the accuracy of medical records by encouraging template-generated notes.

“Physician experiences documented by the AMA and RAND demonstrate that most electronic health record systems fail to support efficient and effective clinical work,” said Dr. Steven J. Stack, AMA president-elect, in a statement. “This has resulted in physicians feeling increasingly demoralized by technology that interferes with their ability to provide first-rate medical care to their patients.”

The AMA said that numerous other studies support these findings, including a recent survey by International Data Corporation that found 58 percent of ambulatory physicians were not satisfied with their EHR technology. Most office-based providers find themselves at lower productivity levels than before the implementation of their EHR and workflow, usability, productivity and vendor quality issues continue to drive dissatisfaction.

In response to physician concerns, the AMA released a framework that outlines eight priorities for improving EHR usability. The association would like to see EHRs that do the following:

• Enhance physicians’ ability to provide high-quality patient care
• Support team-based care
• Promote care coordination
• Offer product modularity and configurability
• Reduce cognitive workload
• Promote data liquidity
• Facilitate digital and mobile patient engagement
• Expedite user input into product design and post-implementation feedback

The AMA said that these priorities were developed with an external advisory committee comprised of practicing physicians, experts, researchers and executives in the field of health information technology.

In 2012, the Affordable Care Act began requiring health plans to switch to electronic health records, which would reduce paperwork and administrative burdens, cut costs, reduce medical errors and improve the quality of care, the Obama administration said.

However, the incentives that were intended to drive widespread EHR adoption have exacerbated and, in some instances, directly caused usability issues, the AMA argued. The association urged the federal government to acknowledge the challenges that physicians face and to abandon the all-or-nothing approach. The AMA is also demanded that federal certification criteria for EHRs need to allow vendors to better focus on the clinical needs of their physician customers.