[More care for patients thanks to user-friendly practice software? An exploratory study]

Given the increasing demand for care and limited physician time, this study investigates whether the usability of practice management systems (PMS) is associated with the performance of medical practices. It analyzes whether more user-friendly PMS enable a higher number of treatment cases and greater service volumes (primary hypotheses), depending, in particular, on case load or service volume (secondary hypotheses).

A total of 24,140 individual practices (number of treatment cases) and 24,434 individual practices (service volume in euros) of office-based physicians were analyzed in 2024. Using linear multilevel models, it was tested whether the number of treatment cases or the service volume was associated with the usability of the PMS, both for the total sample and separately for practices above and below the mode of the dependent variable. In a sensitivity analysis, patient characteristics as well as regional socioeconomic deprivation and physician structure were taken into account.

In the multilevel models of the total sample (concerning the primary hypotheses), no significant association was found between usability (β = 7.9; 90% confidence interval (CI) [-4.6; 20.4]) or the number of treatment cases or service volume (β = 505.4; 90% CI [-226.5; 1,237.7]). However, in practices below the mode, higher usability was significantly associated with higher service volumes (β = 530.1; 90% CI [13.9; 1,046.8]), even after sensitivity analysis, adjusted for patient-level factors of the practice and regional structures (β = 518.1; 90% CI [9.6; 1,027.3]).

The study highlights the potential of PMS to increase efficiency, especially where capacities are not fully utilized. The findings may encourage developers to further improve PMS usability and better tailor systems to everyday practice needs.