A retrospective look at the predictions and recommendations from the 2009 AMIA policy meeting: did we see EHR-related clinician burnout coming?

Clinicians often attribute much of their burnout experience to use of the electronic health record, the adoption of which was greatly accelerated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009. That same year, AMIA’s Policy Meeting focused on possible unintended consequences associated with rapid implementation of electronic health records, generating 17 potential consequences and 15 recommendations to address them. At the 2020 annual meeting of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI), ACMI fellows participated in a modified Delphi process to assess the accuracy of the 2009 predictions and the response to the recommendations. Among the findings, the fellows concluded that the degree of clinician burnout and its contributing factors, such as increased documentation requirements, were significantly underestimated. Conversely, problems related to identify theft and fraud were overestimated. Only 3 of the 15 recommendations were adjudged more than half-addressed.