Meeting the challenges of electronic health record (EHR) optimization

Electronic health records (EHRs) offer many potential benefits to clinicians in information accessibility, e-prescriptions, care coordination and more. Despite these benefits, most clinicians experience numerous shortcomings with EHRs that impact user satisfaction, efficiency, patient-physician relationships, and patient safety. With the widespread adoption of this technology already achieved, we must understand the shortcomings of EHRs to ensure these systems fulfill their intended purpose of improving patient care and clinical efficiency. Many systems inadequately incorporate user-friendly best practices and flexible architectures, limiting user control and customization. This review elaborates on usability, process, technology, and policy challenges. We also describe future solutions to mitigate these shortcomings and improve EHR functionality in clinical settings. Effective EHR improvement requires addressing known challenges through improved processes and technological innovation. Future EHR systems must be dynamic and adaptive, allowing seamless implementation of AI and related technologies across diverse clinical contexts and augmenting instead of impeding clinicians.