JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Despite the acknowledged potential benefits of electronic health records (EHR) in supporting physicians to achieve efficient care delivery, achieving a fit between physician workflow and EHR has posed a major challenge, leaving negative effects on physician wellbeing and patient outcomes. To this effect, organizations have attempted to align the EHR with physician workflow in various ways yet alignment issues persist. To improve alignment, it is important to understand the different ways in which organizations have tried to achieve this fit, their impacts, and their limitations.

Objective:

This review seeks to identify the strategies and tools that organizations have used to align physician workflow with the EHR and their impacts on EHR-to-physician workflow alignment. This information will serve as a toolkit for healthcare organizations and a knowledge required for the direct application of strategy for optimizing EHR workflow and an opportunity to understand the extent, limitations and gaps in achieving this fit.

Methods:

The scoping review will employ a methodological framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley by searching the literature in 6 steps, and by incorporating the Preferred Reporting Items for Scoping Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews checklist for transparency. We will include literature reporting on the tools, strategies, and interventions used to align physician workflow to EHR by searching MEDLINE (OVID), MEDLINE (OVID), PUBMED, COCHRANE CINAHL, SCOPUS, EMBASE, and WEB of SCIENCE.

Results:

The study is expected to provide healthcare organizations with a toolkit that will help them effectively align physician workflow with EHR. This toolkit will also provide researchers with an opportunity to identify gaps in the literature, which can then lead to further studies on how to better achieve a fit between the two. The report is planned to be submitted to an indexed journal in November 2024.

Conclusions:

These findings will provide insight into the strategies and tools implemented by healthcare organizations to align EHR with physician workflow. Furthermore, this review will assess the effectiveness of these strategies and tools whenever feasible.