Doctors' use of electronic medical records systems in hospitals: cross sectional survey.

OBJECTIVES To compare the use of three electronic medical records systems by doctors in Norwegian hospitals for general clinical tasks. DESIGN Cross sectional questionnaire survey. Semistructured telephone interviews with key staff in information technology in each hospital for details of local implementation of the systems. SETTING 32 hospital units in 19 Norwegian hospitals with electronic medical records systems. PARTICIPANTS 227 (72%) of 314 hospital doctors responded, equally distributed between the three electronic medical records systems. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Proportion of respondents who used the electronic system, calculated for each of 23 tasks; difference in proportions of users of different systems when functionality of systems was similar. RESULTS Most tasks listed in the questionnaire (15/23) were generally covered with implemented functions in the electronic medical records systems. However, the systems were used for only 2-7 of the tasks, mainly associated with reading patient data. Respondents showed significant differences in frequency of use of the different systems for four tasks for which the systems offered equivalent functionality. The respondents scored highly in computer literacy (72.2/100), and computer use showed no correlation with respondents' age, sex, or work position. User satisfaction scores were generally positive (67.2/100), with some difference between the systems. CONCLUSIONS Doctors used electronic medical records systems for far fewer tasks than the systems supported.