Relationship between electronic health records strategy and user satisfaction: a longitudinal study using clinicians' online reviews

Objective We investigated how the electronic health records (EHRs) strategies concerning EHR sourcing and vendor switching impact user satisfaction over time. Materials and Methods This study used a novel longitudinal dataset created by scraping clinicians' Glassdoor.com reviews on 109 US health systems from 2012 to 2017 and combining it with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) database. We performed sentiment analysis of clinician reviews to construct our main dependent variable, user satisfaction. Our main independent variables, EHR single sourcing and vendor switching, were constructed using the HIMSS database. Results Our fixed effects model showed that as health systems gain more experience with EHR, a single vendor sourcing strategy was associated with higher user satisfaction. Further, there was no significant impact of vendor switching on user satisfaction. Conclusion This work adds to the current understanding of EHR-driven clinician burnout using a novel longitudinal dataset. We show how organizational-level EHR strategy can impact user satisfaction and that providers and EHR vendors can mine clinician reviews online to understand their evolving needs and sentiments.