How EHR Nudges Improve Clinician Burden and Increase Screening Orders

December 10, 2019 - With doctors’ busy schedules and the ongoing issue of clinician burden, an EHR “nudge” may be effective to prompt medical assistants to set up and order cancer screenings for doctors to sign once they see the patient.

Clinician burden is high, reports confirm, and with other conflicting issues like limited patient engagement and EHR use challenges, key elements of care can slip through the cracks. Preventive screenings, like cancer screenings, may not happen as regularly as they should.

But new data, published in JAMA Network Open suggests an EHR nudge could address many of those problems. According to study authors Mitesh Patel, MD, and Esther Hsiang, MD, pushing EHR nudges out to medical assistance – not physicians themselves – could help address gaps in care that pervade the patient experience and drive cancer screening rates.