The challenges of EHR in healthcare often become pretty obvious in everyday documentation. Scribes deal with them all the time: outdated text carried over from old visits, billing-focused screens, and charts that stay open after the patient is gone. So, what’s actually causing these problems, and what can be done about them?
In this article:
- Why documentation swallows so much of a clinician's day
- Copy-forward, and the quiet errors it leaves behind
- The rules on orders, logins, and signatures, and why they protect you
- What changes when your hospital switches systems
What are the common challenges in EHR implementation?
The challenges of EHR implementation start long before anyone writes a note. Systems are expensive, staff need time to learn them, workflows have to be rebuilt around new screens, and records from other organizations rarely transfer neatly. Then there’s downtime, which every hospital plans for but nobody enjoys. For scribes, a go-live can mean losing familiar shortcuts overnight and working with providers who are still getting used to the new system. Naturally, that can make documentation slower too.
Understanding the common challenges in EHR implementation can explain why a physician with decades of experience still gets frustrated by the screen, or why it takes time for a team to find its rhythm after a major change.
Explore: 9 Tips for Efficient EHR Documentation
Which documentation challenges do scribes face most often?
Day-to-day, medical scribes’ problems often boil down to:
Copy-forward and note bloat
Pulling text from the last visit can save time, but it can also leave errors sitting in the chart: a cough that cleared up in March might still show as active, or an exam finding from another provider might appear as if it happened today. After a while, it gets harder to tell what actually changed.
What helps: carry forward details that stay the same, like past surgeries or family history, but write the history of present illness, exam, and plan fresh each time. If old text doesn’t match what you heard today, flag it instead of quietly changing it and let the provider decide what’s correct.
Alert fatigue
Interaction warnings, allergy warnings, duplicate-order warnings – the list goes on. They fire constantly, and clinicians learn to click through them the way everyone clicks through cookie banners. But the dangerous part is that the one alert that matters looks exactly like all the ones that didn't.
What helps: never clear a clinical alert for someone else – instead, say what came up, then let them make the call. It takes a moment and keeps the decision with the person licensed to make it.
Order entry limits
Scribes can enter orders at a provider's direction, but if you're not licensed, you generally leave them pending for someone who is to verify and release. Then, the details vary by facility and by state, which is exactly why you should ask rather than assume.
What helps: learn your site's policy in your first week, and stay in your own login. If a
provider ever offers you their credentials to save time, say no, and trust us – it's a kindness to both of you.
Patients reading their notes
Patients can open their records and read what was written about them, often the same day. This means that wording that used to stay between colleagues now lands in front of the person it describes.
What helps: plain words, approved abbreviations, and descriptions rather than labels. "Hasn't been able to take the medication as prescribed" sometimes says more than "noncompliant" and starts a far better conversation at the next visit.
Accuracy and attribution
The note goes out under the provider's name. Then they sign it, they own it, and anything you guessed at is now theirs to defend.
What helps: write what the provider said and did, not what you assumed they meant. If the exam outran your typing, ask before the note closes. Keep in mind that a question mid-shift costs you a moment, while a wrong finding in a signed chart costs an addendum and an awkward conversation.
How can medical scribes reduce the challenges of EHR in healthcare?
To be honest, mostly by taking the keyboard – the provider listens, examines, and explains, while scribes shape the note as it happens.
Thanks to it, healthcare professionals aren’t talking to patients over the top of a monitor. Other good practices also include:
- prep charts before the shift, so the history, medications, and results are readily available
- keep a private cheat sheet of each provider's phrasing and favorite templates
- close notes as you go instead of saving a pile for the end
- ask for feedback in the first weeks, while your habits are still easy to change
- find out how downtime works before the day you need it
How do we prepare scribes for these challenges?
Our scribes at ScribeAmerica learn medical terminology, note structure, documentation standards, and patient privacy, and then keep training.
The training follows the workflows real clinics and hospitals use, so the first shift feels like something you've rehearsed. There's a longer payoff, too – sitting beside a clinician while they reason out loud is the kind of experience you can't get from a textbook.
If you’re considering a career as a medical scribe, check out our career advancement page, find out what to expect from how HealthChannels hires, or browse our open medical scribe jobs.
You may also like our article about: What You Learn From 1000 Hours of Doctor Shadowing. Check it out!
