Unrecognized Provider Burden During Hospital EMR Introduction.

Abstract

Introduction: The introduction of-or the transition to-a new electronic health record system (EHR) places an unrecognized burden on health care providers in our ever-changing health care environment of increased mandates, increased overhead, and reduced reimbursement to practice medicine.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to track the non-reimbursed time investment required for 6 providers from an independent spine surgery practice after a hospital system independently decided to transition to a new EHR system.

Results: Between the 6 providers of the practice, 266 hours of required classroom time, in-person training, and video and phone call teaching sessions had to be completed to become "proficient" so that clinical utilization of the system for in-patient care was certified by the hospital trainers and the EHR company.

Conclusions: The burdens associated with the introduction of mandatory EHRs are putting tremendous pressure on providers from a time commitment perspective. This detracts from patient care during that time and deserves to be compensated for by the EHR companies that extract billions of dollars from both federal and private insurers' health care budgets.