Lived experiences of registered nurses: Impact of the electronic medical record

Contemporary healthcare organizations face numerous challenges in an effort to remain viable in an environment of regulation and cost-containment. The use of information technology was touted as an essential component of the reconfiguration in the delivery of healthcare. The IT literature supported the use of computers as a method to enhance productivity and improve efficiency within organizations. The most prevalent technology implemented in healthcare organizations today was the electronic medical record. Hence, the problem of how the EMR impacted the nurse's ability to deliver direct patient care to the consumer must be examined via research studies. The purpose of this study was to describe the registered nurses' perceptions of the impact of the EMR on their ability to deliver direct patient care. Direct patient care refers to the specific bedside interventions provided by the nurse and prescribed by the interdisciplinary treatment team. The researcher used a qualitative design method and a phenomenological approach to identify and describe the nurses' perceptions regarding the influences of the EMR on their ability to provide bedside nursing care in the acute care hospital. The researcher interviewed a total of thirteen registered nurses with the same job responsibilities working on a medical-surgical care, inpatient hospital unit. The common themes that emerged from the nurses' responses from interview questions were described as the outcome of the research study.