Nurse workarounds in the electronic health record: an integrative review.
Fraczkowski D, Matson J, Lopez KD. Nurse workarounds in the electronic health record: an integrative review. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2020;27(7):1149-1165. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocaa050.
The authors reviewed studies using qualitative and quantitative methods to describe nursing workarounds related to the electronic health record (EHR) in direct care activities. Workarounds generally fit into three categories – omission of process steps, steps performed out of sequence, and unauthorized process steps. Probable causes for workarounds were identified, including organizational- (e.g., knowledge deficits, non-formulary orders), environmental-, patient- (e.g., barcode/ID not accessible), task- (e.g., insufficient time), and usability-related factors (e.g., multiple screens to complete an action). Despite nurses being the largest workforce using EHRs, there is limited research focused on the needs of nurses in EHR design.