Utilization of Electronic Medical Record and Associated Factors Among Health Professionals in Public Health Facilities With Service Delivery, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract Backgroundadoption of electronic medical record (EMR) systems in the healthcare delivery has the potential to transform healthcare in terms of saving costs, reducing medical errors, and data quality. However, even if a lots of efforts in the use of electronic health records, such systems have not been implemented and used at expected scale. Thus, his study assessed utilization of electronic medical record and associated factors among health professionals in Eastern Ethiopia.Methodsan institutional based analytic cross sectional study was conducted among randomly selected 412 health professionals from Harari and Dire Dawa, eastern Ethiopia using self-administered questioner. Binary logistic regression was performed for each independent variable against outcome variables (EMR utilization) to estimate the crude and adjusted odds ratio with 95% Confidence interval. P value less than 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.Resultsa total of 412 health professionals from different category and educational level with mean age of 29 year (± 6.4 years) were interviewed. Majority of respondents were from Harari region (70.4%). A total of 229 (55.6%) and 300 (72.8%) of health professionals had good knowledge and attitude towards EMR for health facilities. About 279 (67.7%) reported that they use EMR in their facility currently with (54%) use it on daily basis. A total of 272(66%) of respondents reported to prefer EMR instead of paper based system. Health professional with more than five years’ experience had two times higher odds for using EMR (AOR = 2.22; 95% CI; 1.12–4.42) than early career workers (0–2 years of experience. Having previous EMR training were significantly more to use EMR (AOR = 5.88; 95% CI; 2.93–11.88) as compared to those who did not take training. In addition, having good knowledge (AOR = 1.52; 95% CI; 0.92–1.5) and good attitude on EMR system (AOR = 2.4; 95% CI; 1.35–4.31) had 50% and 140% more odds to use EMR in their facility.Conclusion and recommendationsutilization of EMR was found to be optimal and age, work experience, knowledge, attitude and training were positively associated with use of EMR in their facility. There should be organizational support, more specifically making the system full functional and targeted, timely, effective training packages for health professionals to improve their skills and attitudes.