Electronic Health Record Usability Tied to Patient Safety

TUESDAY, Sept. 19, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- There is a positive association between frontline user-rated electronic health record (EHR) usability and EHR safety performance, according to a study published online Sept. 11 in JAMA Network Open.

David C. Classen, M.D., from the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, and colleagues assessed whether EHR safety performance is associated with the EHR frontline user experience. The analysis included 112 U.S. adult hospitals using the National Quality Forum Leapfrog Health IT Safety Measure and the ARCH Collaborative EHR User experience survey (5,689 respondents; 2017 to 2019).

The researchers found that hospitals scored a mean of 0.673 on the Leapfrog Health IT safety measure (range, 0.297 to 0.973) and had a mean ARCH EHR user experience score of 3.377 (range, 1 [best] to 5 [worst]). The association between the overall safety score and overall user experience score had an adjusted β coefficient score of 0.011. There was a significant association between the ARCH overall score and 10 subcategory scores of the Leapfrog Health IT safety score, while the overall Leapfrog score was associated with the eight subcategory scores of the ARCH user experience score.

"This finding suggests that improving EHR usability, which is a current well-known pain point for EHR users, could have direct benefits in terms of improved EHR safety," the authors write.

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