{"id":9130,"date":"2013-09-17T19:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T23:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poweryourpractice.com\/?p=9130"},"modified":"2013-09-17T19:00:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T23:00:43","slug":"are-ehr-alerts-to-blame-for-poor-physician-patient-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carecloud.com\/continuum\/are-ehr-alerts-to-blame-for-poor-physician-patient-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Are EHR Alerts to Blame for Poor Physician-Patient Communication?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Electronic health record software(EHR) is supposed to facilitate the receipt and management of medical information in real-time, ensuring that healthcare professionals have access to current patient information, thus improving the quality of care.<\/p>\n

Yet, many patients are not made aware of test results by their physicians in a timely manner<\/strong>. This is often due to the fact that the results are not seen by the physicians themselves, as a result of an overabundance of EHR alerts.<\/p>\n

According to a study<\/a> published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, more than 55 percent of physicians believe that their EHR does not have convenient features for notifying patients of their test results. Still, most physicians (82.9 percent) consistently alert patients when it comes to abnormal results. Meanwhile,\u00a0significantly fewer physicians (45.1 percent) notify patients when the test results are normal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An alarming finding from the study is that 46.1 percent of doctors wait to communicate normal test results to patients when they come in for another visit \u2013 and 20.1 percent do this even if the patient\u2019s test findings are abnormal.<\/p>\n

The biggest reason for the delay or lapse in communication between providers and their patients is the presence of too many EHR alerts:<\/p>\n