There are widespread hopes and increasing evidence that expanded use of electronic health records (EHRs) will improve health care quality and patient safety.1, 2, 3 These improvements may be enabled by EHR functionalities such as those that provide preventive care reminders, accurate patient information when needed, and clinical decision support that assists with diagnoses and chronic care management. On the other hand, there are concerns that EHRs could present threats to patient safety resulting from complex data interfaces, poor user-interface design or poor workflow implementation. This brief uses data from the 2013 National Ambulatory Medical Care Physician Workflow Survey to assess physician-reported impacts of EHR use – both positive and negative – on health care quality and patient safety related outcomes.
