Physician Interaction with EHR

Research Medical Center is a regional medical center that meets the needs of residents of a rural area in the Midwest. It is part of a large healthcare system. The primary care hospital implemented the Electronic Health Record (EHR). The endeavor to implement Health IT applications including Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE), EHRs, nursing documentation, and paperless charts, adverse drug reaction alerts, and more were introduced with the corporate initiative. The core applications were clinical and revenue cycle systems, including CPOE. The planning, implementation, and training was developed by the parent operating company and efforts to engage the local physicians were minimal. There were over 300 physicians involved. The physicians were primarily not hospital employees. They had the ability to choose to adopt the EHR and adapt their social, work, and technology practices, or to avoid usage. Follow up research indicated the change management and support efforts were not successful for the physician stakeholder.