A new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality examines the use of health IT in ambulatory care practice redesign and the subsequent impact on patients and provider workflow.
The report (Using Health Information Technology in Practice Redesign: Impact of Health IT on Workflow—Patient Reported Health Information Technology and Workflow) documents workflow impacts of applications that allow patients to share information with primary care providers electronically. The report found information sharing technologies had both positive and negative effects on clinician and staff workflow, while patients generally reported that these technologies had a positive impact on their ability to share information with their provider. With two exceptions, the clinics studied did not redesign their workflows to incorporate the capture and use of patient-related information.

AHRQ will be releasing additional research from related projects on health IT and workflow later this year.

The 200+ page report is available here: http://healthit.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/docs/citation/patient-repor...