One of the skeletons hidden in the closet of every EHR vendor is the impact they have on the productivity of the practices.  We've all heard the horror stories from practices who've had their income cut by 30% but there's a much more common phenomenon that not enough people bring up: the extra work at the end of the day.

In other words, most practices will tell you that their financial productivity eventually returns to normal levels after a period of time after going on line with the EHR.  What physicians don't talk about is the extra 30, 60, 90 minutes (or more) that they spend at the end of every day finishing up their charting.  It's an epidemic.

The folks over at Physicians' Alliance are trying to get a measure of the impact.  I encourage everyone here to head over to their survey.  It takes 2 minutes to complete, you have a chance at a $50 gift card, and we might learn what the real impact of different EHRs may be.

Take a look at the poll to the right!