Survey: Physicians Desire Technology to Reduce Recordkeeping Headaches

Geneia, a company of experienced change agents creating analytic and technology solutions to improve health care, recently released the findings related to physician sentiment towards technology from its nationwide survey of 400 physicians.

Physician views on EMRs are representative of their mixed feelings about technology in the workplace. When asked whether the implementation of EMRs has had a positive or negative impact on their work, 24% of physicians said positive, 19% negative, 53% a little of both, and 5% said they do not use EMRs.

"Seemingly, there is an inverse relationship between health IT spending and physician job satisfaction," says Heather Lavoie, Geneia's president and chief operating officer. "The Geneia survey revealed that physician sentiment towards technology is surprisingly nuanced. Doctors are indicating that data and analytics tools have the potential to reduce time spent on recordkeeping, one of their primary frustrations, while also contributing to it."

When asked their impression of the impact data and analytics tools have on the practice of medicine, 69% of physicians felt they positively impacted their ability to efficiently assess patient history and needs, 63% said they help them get value and improved outcomes from chart documentation, and nearly 60% felt they helped identify and triage the highest need patients and created greater efficiencies in office workflow.

On the other hand, more than 60% of physicians say that data and analytics tools have negatively impacted recordkeeping time. In fact, when asked to identify the number one way data and analytics could improve their job, the most popular answer was to reduce the time spent on recordkeeping (41%), followed by more time with every patient (22%), better access to patients' complete medical profile and history (20%), and more time with the patients who require enhanced care (14%).

Source: Geneia