All health care facilities are, or soon will be, required to maintain a patient’s medical records in electronic form. Almost all hospitals currently use EMR systems. Several U.S. companies are marketing and installing these systems. Using them has helped avoid some problems of hand-written charts, but also has created entirely new problems.

A recent medical blog entry outlined complaints that are being made by nurses about threats to patient safety presented by these EMR systems. Here is a link to the blog:

[Another ‘Survey’ on EHRs – Affinity Medical Center (Ohio) Nurses Warn That Serious Patient Complications “Only a Matter of Time” in Open Letter][1]

Complaints include medication errors, scanning issues, difficulty in timely accessing records, inaccurate drop-down menus, inaccurate medication times, an inability of nurses to ensure medications are scheduled correctly, and endless loops of computer prompts that are unable to be dismissed by nurses in an emergency.

Most plaintiff attorneys will also tell you that it is extremely difficult to review these records and accurately determine when key events or notations were made. Often, it is necessary to obtain the “audit trail” for the EMR system to determine when providers accessed the records and what was ordered and by whom.

[1]: http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2013/11/another-survey-on-ehrs-affinity-medical.html “Another ‘Survey’ on EHRs – Affinity Medical Center (Ohio) Nurses Warn That Serious Patient Complications “Only a Matter of Time” in Open Letter”