Impact of electronic health records on the patient experience in a hospital setting.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The impact of electronic health records (EHRs) and their effects on optimizing the patient experience has been debated nationally. Currently, there is a paucity of data in this area, and existing research offers conflicting results. Since 2006, the Assessing Residents' CI-CARE (ARC) program has evaluated the physician-patient interaction of resident physicians at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Health utilizing a 20-item questionnaire administered through facilitator-patient interviews. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of EHR implementation on the patient experience. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Two academic medical campuses: Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. METHODS: A total of 3417 surveys, spanning December 1, 2012 to May 30, 2013, were assessed. This included patient representation from 9 departments within UCLA Health. Surveys were analyzed to assess physician-patient communication. Statistical comparisons were made using χ analysis. RESULTS: All 16 questions assessing physician-patient communication received better responses in the 3 months following EHR implementation, compared to the 3 months prior to implementation. Of these, 9 questions illustrated statistically significant improvement, whereas the improvement in the remaining 7 questions was not statistically significant. DISCUSSION: These results suggest that EHRs may improve physician-patient communication. The ARC infrastructure allowed for observation of this trend; however, future research should aim to further validate and understand the etiologies of this improvement.