Mobile Electronic Medical Records Promote Workflow: Physicians’ Perspective From a Survey
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: As a result of demographic changes, physicians are required to deliver needed services with limited resources. Research suggests that tablet PCs with access to patient data may streamline clinical workflow. A recent study found tablets with mobile electronic medical records (EMRs) can facilitate data retrieval and produce time savings across the clinical routine within hospital settings. However, the reasons for these time savings, including details on how tablets were being used, remain unclear. The same applies to physicians' perceptions of this tool within an inpatient setting. OBJECTIVE: This study examined physicians' perception of tablets with EMRs in an inpatient setting. The rationale was to identify both subjective and objective factors that impacted the successful implementation and use of tablets running an EMR. METHODS: We developed a 57-item survey questionnaire designed to examine users' perception of and attitude toward tablets, which was administered to 14 participating physicians following 7 weeks of tablet use. Five participants volunteered to participate in a second study that investigated physicians' patterns of tablet use within the EMR environment by digitally tracking and storing usage behavior. Statistical analyses of questionnaire results included mean values with their bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals and multivariate analysis of variance to identify predictors of tablet use. RESULTS: Physicians reported high degrees of satisfaction with the tablets. There was a general consensus among physicians that tablet use streamlined clinical workflow through optimized data retrieval (rated 0.69, 0.23-1.15 points better than control) and improved communication with patients and other physicians (rated 0.85, 0.54-1.15 and 0.77, 0.38-1.15 points better than control, respectively). Age (F3,11=3.54, P=.04), occupational group (F1,11=7.17, P=.04), and attitude toward novel technologies (F1,11=10.54, P=.02) predicted physicians' satisfaction with the devices and their motivation regarding their further use. Tracking data yielded that only a few of the available functions were used frequently. CONCLUSIONS: Although tablet PCs were consistently perceived as beneficial, several factors contributed to the fact that their full potential was not fully exploited. Training in functionality and providing a reliable infrastructure might foster successful tablet implementation.
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The use of tablet computers with access to electronic medical records or multiparameter monitoring has been perceived as beneficial in inpatient settings.
“The use of tablet computers with access to electronic medical records or multiparameter monitoring has been perceived as beneficial in inpatient settings [35,41].”
From Clinical requirements of future patient monitoring in the intensive care unit: qualitative study (2019) · cites this paper as [41]
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- Authors
- Duhm, J., Fleischmann, R., Schmidt, S., Hupperts, H., & Brandt, S. A.
- Affiliations
- Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE)
- Berlin Institute of Health at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Fleischmann, Robert
- Venue
- JMIR mHealth and uHealth
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2016-06-06
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- e70
- ISSN
- 2291-5222 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4914779
- OpenAlex
- W2416143318
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 9.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JMIR mhealth and uhealth (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Refubium (Universitätsbibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Technology and Human Factors in Education and Health
- Social Sciences › Demography › Technology Use by Older Adults
- Keywords
- tablet computers, clinical workflow, physician perceptions, inpatient care, data retrieval, patient communication, technology adoption, physician satisfaction, implementation barriers, training needs
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