News: EHR usability gets a failing grade, according to nurses

A study of 8,638 nurses published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that the mean useability score of electronic health records (EHRs) was 57.6, or the grade of an “F”.

While EHR usability is already known to contribute to burnout for physicians, this was one of the first studies to look at nursing outcomes. Forty-two percent of respondents indicated they were burned out. Those who didn’t report burnout gave EHRs a higher usability score which may indicate a correlation if not a causation between the two.

.Researchers concluded that nurses “rated the usability of their current EHR in the low marginal range of acceptability using a standardized metric of technology usability.”

Editor’s note: The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association published study can be found here. Other ACDIS articles related to burnout can be found here.