Nurse workarounds in the electronic health record: an integrative review. | PSNet

Nurse workarounds in the electronic health record: an integrative review. | PSNet

Nurse workarounds in the electronic health record: an integrative review.

Fraczkowski D, Matson J, Lopez KD. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2020

The authors reviewed studies using qualitative and quantitative methods to describe nursing workarounds related to the electronic health record (EHR) in direct care activities. Workarounds generally fit into three categories – omission of process steps, steps performed out of sequence, and unauthorized process steps. Probable causes for workarounds were identified, including organizational- (e.g., knowledge deficits, non-formulary orders), environmental-, patient- (e.g., barcode/ID not accessible), task- (e.g., insufficient time), and usability-related factors (e.g., multiple screens to complete an action). Despite nurses being the largest workforce using EHRs, there is limited research focused on the needs of nurses in EHR design.