Are EHR Complex Because Now We Can Make Them Complex?

I recently had a chance to do some late night research for this blog at a QuickCare center near my house (4 sutures later and I should be fine).  While I was there I dropped the fact that I was an EHR blogger so I could get them to talk about their experiences with EHR. As expected, they had strong feelings about EHR and we’re happy to share. In fact, the next week they were switching EHR software in a big bang style switchover with 4 hours of training before the switch. God bless them on their conversion.

Although, one of the comments that struck me most was from the nurse who said, “I use to use MEDITECH and it was so simple to use.”  They then went on to talk about the old DOS-like user interface that MEDITECH employed and how easy it was to use.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this response and it made me wonder, Are we making EHR more complex because now we can?  Think about it for a second. In the DOS based world, you couldn’t make an application complex because the interface couldn’t support it.

I’m not suggesting we go back to a DOS based interface. However, maybe there’s some lessons to be learned from that simpler time.

For example, could a number of keyboard commands be integrated into the EHR to make it more effecient. You might remember that the DOS-based environment was all keyboard based which was part of its efficiency. It made for a bit more learning curve, but once you mastered it, it was incredibly fast.

One thing that is missing from EHR today is simplicity. Maybe looking back might help us remember a simpler day.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

1 Comment

  • honestly, I do believe they’re complex, but in how they have been positioned are being used, and that it is the wrong product for job. We are now just tackling the job of getting the medical record into an electronic format, which can easily be accomplished by today’s technology, but it is a laborious task – either on paper or electronic form. However, we are be asked to do much more today than the EHR is set up to do. The EHR of today is by no means a full elaborate took kit, not even a Swiss Army knife, but more a butter knife being used to replace the entire cutlery and screwdriver set. And that is what makes it complicated.

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