A new survey of hospital clinicians finds that care teams “pervasively” use electronic health record workarounds at critical points of care. While the benefits of electronic health records have been widely touted, and EHRs are now ubiquitous across hospitals in the United States, a study of a major teaching hospital in New England indicated care teams commonly use EHR shortcuts and workarounds potentially impacting quality and safety.WHY IT MATTERSThe report, published in peer-reviewed science journal PLOS One, found that EHRs are not used for information sharing and frequently impede intra-care team communication, while also revealing a high degree of variance in the ways care teams use EHRs during morning rounds.Through a series of interviews, and an electronic survey of hospital clinicians, the researchers found care teams “pervasively” used workarounds at critical points of care.Some workarounds, such as handwritten notes were used as a cognitive aid for clinicians, while others were used due to lack of system support, the report noted.In order to compile evidence, researchers observed care teams during their morning rounds, taking structured notes to record EHR use before entering the patient’s room, in the patient’s room and after leaving the room.Items for observation included which care team clinicians used the EHR, the device used to access the system, its functional use in the room and use of printouts in the patient’s room.

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