Clinical Information Systems: The Response-Time Problem

Whether you call them electronic medical records systems, clinical information systems, or by some other name, they are the key to claiming HITECH Act incentive dollars. But if you talk to the people who use those systems on a daily basis, they aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Ninety-nine health care professionals – most of whom were nurses, physicians or executives representing hospitals with up to 1000 beds – responded to a recent survey conducted by Compuware. The survey was designed to measure the speed with which users are able to access their clinical information systems and whether they, as users, are satisfied with that performance.

A majority of respondents said response times for a single log-in were greater than 10 seconds. Not surprisingly, nearly half found such response times unacceptable.

Read more on this topic in Lora Bentley's blog post "National E-Health Records System Still Faces Obstacles."

A recent Compuware survey of health care professionals from organizations large and small revealed the majority are not satisfied with clinical information system response times.

54 of 99 respondents said they access their clinical information systems at least 10 times a day.

49 percent reported log in response times between 11 seconds and one minute. Some respondents said logging in took more than one minute.

Specifically, 49 of 99 respondents, or 46 percent, say the log-in response times of their systems are not acceptable.