Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Prehospital information is valuable but often under-used by physicians. In both the emergency and inpatient settings, information about a patient's condition prior to their arrival is important to provide optimal care. Historically, prehospital responders' electronic patient care reports (ePCR) have not been integrated with the hospital's electronic health record (EHR). In this study, we aimed to assess physician attitudes towards the ePCR and patient care decisions before and after integration of prehospital ePCR and hospital EHR systems. We hypothesized that this would increase accessibility and use of prehospital ePCR in patient care decisions. METHODS: In 2023, our local academic health center implemented software that made prehospital documentation available to hospital staff within 30 minutes of patient arrival to the emergency department (ED). Before this, we surveyed attendings, fellows, and residents from both the ED and internal medicine (IM) department on their attitudes and behaviors regarding ePCR and clinical practice. We administered the same survey six months after implementation, and compared responses with a Wilcoxon signed-rank test. RESULTS: Sixty-six physicians responded to the pre survey, including 39 (59.1%) from the ED and 27 (40.9%) from the IM department. Fifty-two completed the post survey, including 33 (63.5%) emergency physicians and 19 (36.5%) IM physicians. The pre- survey response rates were 92.9% and 54% for the ED and IM groups, respectively, while the post-survey response rates were 84.6% and 70.4%. Change in rank was significant (P < .01) for the following categories: knowledge;, ability; ease of use; time to access; and frequency of accessing the ePCR. Change in rank was not significant for the importance of ePCR in patient care and medical decision-making, and whether the ePCR would be used more frequently if it were easier to access. CONCLUSION: Pre- and post-survey responses regarding accessibility showed a significant change in rank, while the importance of the ePCR on clinical decision-making did not. This suggests that while system integration increased accessibility to prehospital information, it did not significantly alter patient care decision-making.