Electronic Health Record Usability Issues and Potential Contribution to Patient Harm

Abstract

This study analyzed patient safety reports in and near Pennsylvania from 2013 through 2016 to identify those that contained explicit language associating possible patient harm with an electronic health record usability issue.

Electronic health record (EHR) usability, which is the extent that EHRs support clinicians in achieving their goals in a satisfying, effective, and efficient manner, is a point of frustration for clinicians and can have patient safety consequences. However, specific usability issues and EHR clinical processes that contribute to possible patient harm across different health care facilities have not been identified. We analyzed reports of possible patient harm that explicitly mentioned a major EHR vendor or product.

Methods

This study was approved by the MedStar Health Institutional review board with an informed consent waiver. Patient safety reports, which are free-text descriptions of safety events, were analyzed from 2013 through 2016. Reports were retrieved from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority database, which collects reports from 571 health care facilities in Pennsylvania, and from a large multihospital academic health care system in the mid-Atlantic, outside of Pennsylvania. Reports were voluntarily entered by health care staff, mostly nurses, and included several sentences describing the safety event, contributing factors, and categorization of effect on the patient. This categorization indicates whether the event reached the patient (meaning additional health care services were required), whether there was harm at the time of reporting, or the potential for harm to the patient. The harm categories were (1) reached the patient and potentially required monitoring to preclude harm, (2) potentially caused temporary harm, (3) potentially caused permanent harm, and (4) could have necessitated intervention to sustain life or could have resulted in death.

Reports were included for analysis if 1 of the top 5 EHRs (vendors or products; based on the number of health care organizations attesting to meeting meaningful use requirements with that EHR) was mentioned and if the report was categorized as reaching the patient with possible harm. Two usability experts reviewed reports to determine if the report contained explicit language to associate the possible harm report with an EHR usability issue. Usability-related reports were further categorized into 1 of 7 usability topics to describe the primary usability challenge, based on a synthesis of previous taxonomies, and categorized into 1 of 4 EHR clinical processes, based on existing categories of EHR interactions (Table 1). A subset of the data (15%) were dually coded. Inter-rater reliability κ scores were 0.9 (usability as a contributing factor), 0.83 (usability category), and 0.87 (EHR clinical process).

Table 1. Definitions and Examples of Electronic Health Record (EHR) Usability and Clinical Processes Issues Identified in Possible Patient Harm Reports, 2013-2016^a.

	Definition	Example
Usability Issueb
Data entry	EHR data entry is difficult or not possible given the clinicians’ work process preventing the clinician from appropriately entering desired information	Pharmacist searched for the q24hr entry in the EHR by typing “q24h” Enter and Enter again, which pulls up “Q24HP” and “Q24HR,” but because she hit Enter a second time, it is assumed that the selection is q24hr; the EHR populates all frequencies in alphabetical and numerical order
Alerting	EHR alerts or other feedback are inadequate because they are absent, incorrect, or ambiguous	Allergy alert did not fire to prescriber even though gelatin allergy was listed in the EHR
Interoperability	EHR interoperability is inadequate within components of the same EHR or from the EHR to other systems, hindering the communication of information	Patient was admitted as a trauma; the lab value did not flow into the EHR when the patient identification was confirmed
Visual display	EHR display of information is confusing, cluttered, or inaccurate resulting in clinician difficulty interpreting information	The orders in the EHR still showed the medication from the previous 2 administrations at the correct dose (unchanged), but dated for the previous day, which is subtle to notice in a long list of medications
Availability of information	EHR availability of clinically relevant information is hindered because information is entered or stored in the wrong location or is otherwise inaccessible	I placed postoperation orders in EHR; they were initiated and I signed them; the perianesthesia nurse called and said they had “failed”; on the orders menu, all orders had failed; I was unable to place new orders, the nurse was unable to initiate old orders
System automation and defaults	The EHR automates or defaults to information that is unexpected, unpredictable, or not transparent to the clinician	Yesterday, I was entering a patient's warfarin dose to start October 1 at 8:00 pm; when I entered in the time, I did not realize the EHR had defaulted to October 2 at 8:00 pm before pushing the order through
Workflow support	The EHR workflow is not supported due to a mismatch between the EHR and the mental state of the end user	A test ordered by the office through the EHR was “thyroid group”; the specimen was drawn and ordered by the laboratory; one part of the thyroid test was not performed because it was a confusing translation between the physician order and the EHR
Clinical Processc
Order placement	Placing or relating to a clinical order (eg, admission, laboratory, referral, medication, procedure)	A physician put his orders in the EHR (patient was in the recovery room postsurgery) 15 min after physician left the hospital; the orders should have been active; unable to pull the medications to administer to the recovery room patient; but the orders appeared to be completed; on the Medication Administration Record everything was shadowed grey; I spoke to the medical-surgical charge nurse to see if the floor discontinued the orders, and she stated this has happened several times on the night shift regarding physician orders being discontinued and or disappearing
Medication administration	Relating to adverse drug reactions, wrong dose, duration, concentration, timing, route, etc	Patient was given an additional dose of diltiazem today; tasked to start at 6 am, given at 5:30 am by the night shift nurse; another task fired at 10:00 am because the medicine was written as daily; given at 12:30 pm when patient returned from her test
Review of results	Receiving or viewing a clinical result on the intended patient (eg, laboratory, pathology, imaging)	Gentamicin trough ordered for 5 am; it was sent to the lab and the level came back as 1.6; a dose of gentamicin was given; nursing missed the level being high because it showed up as “within normal limits” in EHR values; should have EHR recognize high levels for neonatal population
Documentation	Accurate recording and reviewing of health information, status, treatment, planning, etc of a patient	Patient with 2 EHR encounters admitted; physician orders under 1 encounter, unit documentation on another encounter; cannot combine, cannot see orders on both encounters

Abbreviation: q24hr, once every 24 hours.

^aData were from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority Database and a large multihospital academic health care system in the mid-Atlantic, outside of Pennsylvania.

^bUsability issue categories were based on a synthesis of existing taxonomies. Reports were categorized based on expert review to identify the primary usability issue that contributed to the possible harm event.

^cClinical process categories were based on existing categories of EHR interactions. Reports were categorized based on expert review to identify the primary EHR interaction that contributed to the possible harm event.

Results

Of 1.735 million reported safety events, 1956 (0.11%) explicitly mentioned an EHR vendor or product and were reported as possible patient harm and 557 (0.03%) had language explicitly suggesting EHR usability contributed to possible patient harm. Harm level analysis of the 557 reports were reached the patient and potentially required monitoring to preclude harm (84%, n = 468), potentially caused temporary harm (14%, n = 80), potentially caused permanent harm (1%, n = 7), and could have necessitated intervention to sustain life or could have resulted in death (<1%, n = 2).

Of the 7 usability categories, challenges were data entry (27%, n = 152), alerting (22%, n = 122), interoperability (18%, n = 102), visual display (9%, n = 52), availability of information (9%, n = 50), system automation and defaults (8%, n = 43), and workflow support (7%, n = 36). Of the 4 EHR clinical processes, usability challenges occurred during order placement (38%, n = 213), medication administration (37%, n = 207), review of results (16%, n = 87), and documentation (9%, n = 50) (Table 2).

Table 2. Frequency of Clinical Process and Usability Issues Identified in the Possible Patient Harm Reports, 2013-2016^a.

Clinical Processes Issues	Usability Category, No. of Possible Patient Harm Events (%)
	Availability of Information	Alerting	System Automation and Defaults	Data Entry	Visual Display	Interoperability	Workflow Support	Total
Documentation	6 (1.1)	2 (0.4)	2 (0.4)	33 (5.9)b	2 (0.4)	3 (0.5)	2 (0.4)	50 (9)
Medication administration	13 (2.3)	77 (13.8)b	22 (3.9)	44 (7.9)b	22 (3.9)	19 (3.4)	10 (1.8)	207 (37.2)
Order placement	25 (4.5)	35 (6.3)b	19 (3.4)	56 (10.1)b	18 (3.2)	38 (6.8)b	22 (3.9)	213 (38.2)
Review of results	6 (1.1)	8 (1.4)	0	19 (3.4)	10 (1.8)	42 (7.5)b	2 (0.4)	87 (15.6)
Total	50 (9)	122 (21.9)	43 (7.7)	152 (27.3)	52 (9.3)	102 (18.3)	36 (6.5)	557 (100)

^aData were from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority Database and a large multihospital academic health care system in the mid-Atlantic, outside of Pennsylvania.

^bValue greater than 5%.

Discussion

EHR usability may have been a contributing factor to some possible patient harm events. Only a small percentage of potential harm events were associated with EHR usability, but the analysis was conservative because safety reports only capture a small fraction of the actual number of safety incidents, and only reports with explicit mentions of the top 5 vendors or products were included.

Patient safety reports contain limited information making it difficult to identify causal factors and may be subject to reporter bias, inaccuracies, and a tendency to attribute blame for an event to the EHR. Additional research is needed to determine causal relationships between EHR usability and patient harm and the frequency of occurrence. Although federal policies promote EHR usability and safety, additional research may support policy refinement.

Section Editor: Jody W. Zylke, MD, Deputy Editor.