Electronic Health Record Usability, Satisfaction, and Burnout for Family Physicians

In this survey study of physician EHR usability and satisfaction, approximately one-fourth of family physicians reported being very satisfied with their EHR, while another one-fourth reported being somewhat or very dissatisfied, a concerning finding amplified by the inverse association between EHR satisfaction and burnout. Electronic health record-based alerts had the lowest reported usability, suggesting EHR vendors should focus their efforts on improving alerts. Electronic health record efficiency strategies were broadly adopted, but only physicians with highly usable EHRs realized gains in EHR satisfaction from using these strategies, suggesting that EHR burden-reduction interventions are likely to have heterogenous associations across physicians with different EHRs.