A new survey by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a nonprofit group that supports the expansion of information technology in health care, reports that most hospital IT administrators are satisfied with the electronic health records (EHRs) systems they have implemented in recent years.

Apparently the tech people are happy with the systems; it's just the doctors and nurses who need to get on board.

Keep in mind, the sample size was relatively small.

It included 52 IT administrators–mostly Chief Technology Officers–from hospitals that follow the 8-step model that HIMSS devised for implementing EHRs.

Read: Tech CEO to feds: Police health IT standards

More than four out of five respondents said that EHR adoption had led to increased efficiencies in clinical staff's quality performance, while just over half said the EHR system had led to increased productivity.

In addition, four out of five attributed financial savings to the adoption of EHRs.

Read: The pitfalls of health care's addiction to big data

But the administrators acknowledged that physicians and nurses are far from happy with the new systems. Less than half said they believed nurses were satisfied and less than a third said that physicians were.

The reports of frustration with EHR from doctors is nothing new.

In an August survey by the American Medical Association, only a third of physicians said they were satisfied with the EHR system they worked with and more than half said that EHRs had increased total operating costs.

Instant Insights /

Electronic health records: Who's happy with them, who's not

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