An EHR user-satisfaction survey: advice from 408 family physicians.

D eciding whether to move to an electronic health record (EHR) system and which system to choose can be paralyzingly difficult questions. We hope this article can help. In the February 2005 issue of Family Practice Management, we published a survey instrument designed to elicit advice from family physicians already using EHR systems, and over the past several months we have collected more than 400 usable responses. The results offer help with both questions. Because respondents were self-selected, the results of the survey do not necessarily reflect the state of EHR use in family medicine, but for physicians contemplating the purchase of an EHR, they may be even more useful. The results constitute the kind of advice you would get if you could ask 408 colleagues how they feel about the EHR systems they use.