Commentary: lost in translation? How electronic health records structure communication, relationships, and meaning
Abstract
The media through which we communicate shape how we think, how we act, and who we are. Electronic health records (EHRs) may promote more effective, efficient, coordinated, safer care. Research is emerging, but more is needed to assess the effect of EHRs on communication, relationships, patients' trust, adherence, and health outcomes. The authors posit that EHRs introduce a "third party" into exam room interactions that competes with the patient for clinicians' attention, affects clinicians' capacity to be fully present, and alters the nature of communication, relationships, and physicians' sense of professional role. Screen-driven communication inhibits patients' narratives and diminishes clinicians' responses to patients' cues about psychosocial issues and emotional concerns. Students, trainees, and clinicians can, however, learn to integrate EHRs into triadic exam room interactions to facilitate information sharing and shared decision making.Student exposure to EHRs is currently limited. Educators and researchers should implement curricula and assessment tools to help learners integrate EHRs into clinical interactions in ways that foster, rather than diminish, communication and relationships. Further, educators must prioritize the teaching and modeling of self-awareness and self-calibration, mindful presence, and compassion within such curricula to prevent these important qualities and skills from being lost in translation in the digital era.
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Clinician Perspectives on Ambient AI Scribes in the Intensive Care Unit: Qualitative Interview Study
Jalilian, L., Manafi, N., Vandiver, M. S., Lukac, P., & Kadambi, A. (2026) · JMIR Medical Informatics · doi:10.2196/81445
“Ambient AI scribes were viewed not only as tools to reduce documentation burden but also as infrastructure for reinforcing and sustaining real-world standardized communication practices in the ICU [18].”
- Authors
- Lown, B. A., & Rodriguez, D.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lown, Beth A.
- ORCID
- Lown, Beth A.
- Venue
- Academic Medicine
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-04
- Volume
- 87
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 392-394
- ISSN
- 1040-2446 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2037723670
- Cited by
- 64
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 13.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Academic Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Keywords
- electronic health records, physician-patient communication, triadic communication, patient trust, shared decision-making, patient narratives, psychosocial problems, clinical teaching, self-awareness, mindfulness, compassion
- MeSH terms
- Communication, Curriculum, Education, Medical, Humans, Physician-Patient Relations, Physician's Role, Electronic Health Records
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