Reflections on electronic medical records: when doctors will use them and when they will not.
OBJECTIVE
Our purpose is to counter the common wisdom that doctors are refractory to change and therefore responsible for the limited use of electronic medical records.


METHODS
We draw on experience with electronic medical records in two Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals dating back to the early 1980s.


RESULTS
Doctors quickly become ardent users of electronic medical records if the software is sufficiently helpful in the care of their patients.


CONCLUSIONS
The key to enthusiastic acceptance of electronic medical records is computing that is easy to use and helpful to doctors, nurses, and other clinicians in the care of their patients.
Bleich
Howard L
HL
Harvard Medical School, Division of Clinical Informatics, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA. hbleich@bidmc.harvard.edu
Slack
Warner V
WV
D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D001900:Boston; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006753:Hospital Records; D006801:Humans; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014584:User-Computer Interface