Nurses' level of satisfaction with computerized provider order entry systems tends to increase over time, according to a study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, FierceHealthIT reports.
For the study, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison surveyed physicians and nurses working in four intensive care units at a large hospital in the Northeastern U.S.
Satisfaction With CPOE
The study found that physicians and nurses were "moderately satisfied" with CPOE systems and that nurses initially were less satisfied with CPOE systems than doctors.
Over the course of one year, overall satisfaction levels remained steady for physicians and improved for nurses. After one year, nurses' satisfaction level matched that of physicians.
According to the study, physicians and nurses said that they liked certain aspects of CPOE systems, including:
- Convenient access to a range of patient data;
- Ease of reading orders; and
- Efficiency in making orders.
In addition, physicians said they liked CPOE systems' usability and computer order sets, according to the study.
Dissatisfaction With CPOE
However, the study found that some physicians and nurses reported experiencing difficulty:
- Modifying orders and removing old orders or orders that no longer applied; and
- Using CPOE systems that were poorly designed or overly complicated.
Additional Findings
The study also found that:
- Although physicians' overall satisfaction with CPOE systems did not improve over one year, they did report feeling more positive about how CPOE systems affect patient care;
- Neither physicians nor nurses said that CPOE systems saved them time, but nurses after one year said that CPOE systems did not delay them as much as in the past; and
- Neither physicians nor nurses said that CPOE systems led to overall improvements in patient care or productivity (Bird, FierceHealthIT, 10/25).