Some Good News, and Some Bad, in Report on Physicians and Their EHR Experiences

The latest KLAS Arch Collaborative survey finds that healthcare organizations with the highest number of clinicians satisfied with their electronic health record experience are employing superusers.

A new report from the KLAS Arch Collaborative, which addresses how healthcare organizations build trust with clinicians to ultimately improve their electronic health record experience, shows a vast gap between those who are satisfied and those who aren't.

Clinician perceptions of three key EHR stakeholders—their organization/IT leadership, their EHR vendor, and end users themselves—impact their Net EHR Experience Score (NEES). The impact is strongest with the first group, organization/IT leadership, according to the report.

The NEES uses a point scale of -100 to +100 to measure agreement or disagreement that those surveyed trust their organization/IT leadership to deliver good EHR experiences. The gap between both ends of the spectrum is vast, with 27,455 clinicians surveyed strongly agreeing that they do have such trust, and 21,058 clinicians strongly disagreeing. The NEES score between the two represents a gap of 124.1 points on the NEES scale.

Several factors determine whether clinicians trust their organization/IT leadership, including EHR satisfaction, clinician burnout, EHR training, and support.

The Arch Collaborative conducted its first survey in 2017, and since then participating organizations have seen gains in some areas and declines in others. Compared to four years ago, more clinicians are reporting feeling burned out. But the percentage of clinicians who feel their organization/IT leadership delivers well is rebounding, from 57% in 2017 to a low of 47% in 2021 but back up to 53% in the 2022 survey.

Some Arch Collaborative organizations have measured clinician satisfaction before and after completing an initiative targeting a specific department or goal. On average, these organizations see significant improvement in their NEES score, the report says.

Organizations who are successful in improving the EHR experience often leverage EHR superusers, the report says. These superusers are key to developing effective EHR education materials, and are very effective members of EHR governance boards, the survey finds.

Clinicians who feel the EHR does not support high-quality, patient-centered care tend to be much less likely to be satisfied with their EHR and their organization, the survey finds.