Perceived Usefulness of Electronic Health Record Among Nurses in a Military Hospital in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The use of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system is designed to improve the healthcare system of the hospital (Ryu & Kim, 2018). However, despite its advantages, some nurses have experienced the complexity of the software and the absence of uniform standards (HabibiKoolaee et al., 2015). Hence, this quantitative study employed a descriptive-correlational research design to determine the relationship between the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and the quality of nursing care. There were 277 nurse respondents from King Abdulaziz Medical City and random sampling was used to recruit the respondents. Frequency and percentage were used to describe the demographic and experience-related profile of the respondents. Mean and standard deviation described the central tendency of data and the variation of responses of respondents. Pearson Correlation was used to determine the significant relationship between the usefulness of EHR and quality of nursing care and Chi -square was specifically used to determine the significant relationship between the socio-demographic and experience-related profile of respondents and the quality of nursing care. Findings of the study revealed that the usefulness of the EHR system has a positive significant relationship with quality of nursing care. The experience-related profile like pre-exposure to EHR systems (x2 2.4, p 0.04) was found to have a positive significant relationship with quality of nursing care. However, the socio-demographic profile like age (x2 1.5, p 0.19) and sex (x2 2.7, p .848) and length of service (x2 1.1, p 0.36) were not significantly related to the quality of nursing care, even experience-related profile like computer literacy (x2 2.2, p>0.05). As a result, the use of electronic health records has a positive relationship with the quality of nursing care regardless of the socio-demographic profile of end users except for pre-exposure to EHR. Therefore, it is recommended that the use of EHR be continuously utilized and the healthcare industry will engage with developmental programs about it, to consistently enhance and improve quality of care and with set limitations of this study, it is recommended that this study be used as the basis of a more in-depth study in the future.