Survey: Most nurses say EHRs improve patient safety
A survey of nurses on their view of health IT found that the majority agree digitized records improve patient safety, make it easier to find comprehensive patient information and enhance collaboration with clinicians inside their organizations.
HIMSS Analytics conducted the survey on behalf of Allscripts, collecting responses from 626 registered nurses from a variety of care settings.
Seventy-one percent said they would not consider returning to paper-based medical records, 72 percent said EHRs help avoid medication errors, and 73 percent said they enable collaboration with other clinicians.
Seventy percent of nurses said EHRs provide them with more complete information.
"Results show that nurses have the highest levels of satisfaction around how EHRs improve the quality of clinical decisions," said Brendan FitzGerald, research director at HIMSS Analytics, "but there are also findings that indicate EHR vendors could do more to improve nursing workflows." Forty-three percent of respondents said EHRs eliminate duplicate work and 33 percent said EHRs offer them more time to spend with patients.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.