Understanding unintended consequences for EMR: a literature review

While Electronic Medical Records (EMR) have been hailed as an important step for advancing healthcare, a number of studies have noted that its introduction also brings unintended consequences to healthcare organisations. This means that introducing EMR to key stakeholders such as clinicians, healthcare administrators, as well as to the overall healthcare organisations, may not be as straightforward as we have hoped for. There has been some empirical work and systematic reviews specifically addressing the unintended consequences for EMR. Given the complexity of these issues, continued effort to investigate them is critical. This paper first proposes an integration and systematisation of the existing literature on the unintended consequences of EMR (including its various definitions and classifications), and then provides insights for dealing with these issues, including mitigation strategies for addressing these issues.