Most financially struggling hospitals regret changing EHRs

Editor's Note

A Black Book survey found that 87% of financially struggling hospitals regret their decision to replace their electronic health records (EHRs) systems, the April 29 Healthcare IT News reports. Of those that changed their original EHRs since 2011, 14% are losing inpatient revenue at a pace that wouldn’t support the cost of their replacement EHR.

Other key survey findings include:

• 62% of nonmanagerial IT staff said EHR replacement had a significantly negative impact on healthcare delivery
• 90% of nurses said changing the EHR processes reduced their ability to deliver hands-on care at the same level of effectiveness
• 5% of hospital leaders said replacing their EHRs negatively affected health care delivery.

A Black Book executive noted that in their polling experience, most executives won’t admit they were oversold or that their IT decisions had adverse bearing on patient care.

Four years after what Black Book calls the "replacement frenzy," a recent survey from the market research firm indicates that 87 percent of financially struggling hospitals now regret changing their EHR systems. Among the difficulties the survey highlighted were higher than expected costs, layoffs, declining inpatient revenues, disenfranchised clinicians and doubts over the benefits of switching systems.