A hospital’s adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) is a prerequisite to fully adopt Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The goal of a fully integrated EHR is to improve patient care quality and safety. Satisfaction of users during and after implementation of EMRs system can help successful implementation and on-going effectiveness of EMRs system. Nurses from two hospitals in Iksan City in Jeonbuk Province were surveyed to identify demographics and strategies to mitigate barriers to EMR implementation. Both hospitals had implemented EMRs system over two years ago. 204 clinical nurses provided responses to the survey questionnaire. Four different categories of satisfaction were analyzed against the demographic variables. This was also to provide data to the hospitals that plan to EMR implementation near future.
Neither hospital had previously obtained any satisfaction data from employees regarding their experience with the EMR implementation or usage. However, several trends were identified.
First, overall satisfaction with EMRs was highest for nurses with less than four year employment at those hospitals. Nurses with greater than 20 years of service had the least EMR and job satisfaction of those surveyed. All were statistically significant.
Second, among the different age groups analyzed, nurses in their 30’s were the most satisfied with the function and efficiency, standardization, practical use, and IT support of their EMRs. Nurses in their 20’s using EMRs had the most job satisfaction; nurses in their 40’s had the least job satisfaction since EMR implementation. Further analyses revealed the subcategory most satisfied with their EMR were college graduates with less than four years of service at their current hospitals and no prior experience with paper medical records.
The results show it is important for hospitals to evaluate nurses’ satisfaction with EMR implementation to improve effectiveness and ensure improvements in patient care quality and safety. Hospitals may need to tailor EMR training plans and EMR support based on age, years of service, and years of use. Specifically, nurses in their 40’s and with over 20 years of service using paper records may require additional training and continued support during EMR implementation. I expect this provides data to the hospitals to implement and improve EMR system. Further research is needed to assess if mitigation strategies can improve satisfaction in certain categories and whether dissatisfaction with EMRs leads to worse outcomes. I also expect this study can be utilized to build the system as well as to improve the current system.