How satisfied are physicians with labs? Study digs deep

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Anne Ford

March 2015—In the span of human history, seven years is nothing but an eye blink. But in technological terms, seven years might as well be a geologic epoch. Consider: Only since 2007 have we seen Netflix streaming services; Kindles, Nooks, and other e-readers; and the sweeping adoption of the iPhone.

Dr. McCall

And only in the past decade or so have we seen the widespread use of electronic health records. That’s one reason Shannon McCall, MD, believes readers will learn something from “Physician Satisfaction with Clinical Laboratory Services,” a 2014 CAP Q-Probes study that examined how satisfied physicians are with 16 laboratory service characteristics. The study is a near repeat of one conducted in 2007, with one major difference: The 2014 version asked participants to report their satisfaction with something fewer physicians were familiar with seven years ago—namely, electronic order entry.

So how satisfied are physicians in this regard? Not very. Only 69.4 percent of study participants called their satisfaction with ease of electronic order entry “excellent” or “good.”

“We had a sneaking suspicion that the satisfaction would be low,” says Dr. McCall, who coauthored the study with Larry Massie, MD. “I think it reflects the widespread adoption of complex electronic health record systems. Some of the systems that are being rolled out to hospitals have so much functionality and tie together so many different things, everything from patient scheduling to patient billing. Having that all in one system can sometimes lead to a complex interface, and I think physicians are having a bit of a hard time with that.”

Dr. McCall is assistant professor of pathology and director of the biospecimen repository and processing core in the Department of Pathology at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Massie is chief of the pathology and laboratory medicine service at the New Mexico VA Health Care System in Albuquerque.