Comment Interoperability (Score 2, Informative) 99
That's the biggest problem I've seen.
There's no real e-standard for e-medical records.
This is mainly from friends with knowledge of Meditech and Epic, some of them from HIMSS level 6 institutions (it only goes to 7).
The systems might be able to talk to others of the same type (maybe, sometimes they don't), but so far, there's no real "medical record standard" that everyone can read.
Another added problem is actually DOING the e-record...
History, documentation, orders, verifying meds,,,
I've heard of widely varying times for these activities, anywhere from 20 to 60 min. on a new patient, all usually done by the RN on duty, typing away instead of actually attending to the patient directly.
Speed of completion is usually in relation of the RN's language skills relative to the patient (native english speaking RNs are usually the fastest, bi-lingual eng/spanish are almost always the exact same speed).