Surveyed nurses more satisfied with electronic health records, but concerns remain

Editor's Note

Reliability and response times remain electronic health record (EHR) headaches for nurses despite an increase in overall satisfaction with the systems, Becker’s Health IT August 20 reports. 

The data is from an August report from KLAS Research based on insights from the Arch Collaborative EHR Experience Survey, which asked 75,000 nurses at 171 healthcare organizations about their EHR experience between 2021 and 2023.

The Becker’s article lists 5 key takeaways from the data:

1. Nurses' EHR satisfaction has grown from 38.2 in 2019 to 50.9 in 2023.
2. One-third of nurses reported feeling burned out in 2023; of that total 32% cited their EHR as a contributing factor.
3. The primary reasons cited for EHR dissatisfaction were slow loading times (68%), slow login processes (61%), hardware issues (57%), and unplanned downtime (35%).
4. 42% of respondents said their initial EHR training was insufficient, and 32% said training wasn't specific to their own workflows. 
5. Among organizations with the highest nurse satisfaction in EHR, the top three training methodologies were at-the-elbow training, self-directed E-learning, and department meetings.

Per the KLAS report, nurses who were satisfied with ongoing training reported a 115% higher agreement rate that EHR enables efficiency; meanwhile, 38% of respondents said they don’t agree that their ongoing training is enough.

View the report here for more insights into EHR nurse satisfaction.