Best EHR systems of 2014: Physicians rank five key performance areas

The performance of an electronic health record (EHR) system can mean the difference between a thriving practice and a struggling one. These systems impact every aspect of medical care, from the care physicians provide to patients to the practice’s ability to get paid for the work it does.

For this exclusive EHR Scorecard, Medical Economics asked thousands of physicians to rate their systems, on a scale of 0 to 10, in the key areas that matter most to them.

Survey methodology

The findings cited in this report are based on a survey conducted by Readex Research and sponsored by Medical Economics. Through the use of an online survey, the purpose of this research project was to better understand use and performance regarding ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) systems currently available to medical professionals.

Data was collected via an online survey from June 10, 2014 to June 27, 2014. The survey was closed for tabulation with 7,442 responses. However, a majority of the study’s results are based upon the 5,790 employed respondents who indicated their practice has an ambulatory EHR system.

As with any research, the results should be interpreted with the potential of non-response bias in mind. It is unknown how those who responded to the survey may be different from those who did not respond. In general, the higher the response rate, the lower the probability of estimation errors due to non-response and thus, the more stable the results.

The margin of error for percentages based on 5,790 responses is ±1.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The margin of error for percentages based on smaller sample sizes will be larger.