f**k EHR

Dossier

What the field is reading.

A working bibliography of whitepapers shaping the medical-AI and EHR conversation — vendor manifestos, regulatory strategy, trade-association reports, and academic targets. We read each one with the same two questions: what does it argue, and what does it leave open?

Aerial view of the Library of Congress Main Reading Room: concentric rings of desks under a domed coffered ceiling.

The Main Reading Room. A bibliography is a position about what is worth reading.

Carol M. Highsmith · 2009 · Library of Congress, Carol M. Highsmith Archive · Public domain (dedicated)

  • 2024 · Trade org

    AHIMA (Journal of AHIMA)

    Clinical Documentation Integrity — Reference Library

    AHIMA's reference library on Clinical Documentation Integrity. A useful counterpoint to physician-first writing because it surfaces the downstream coding, billing, and compliance pressures that shape what physicians are asked to type.

    Argues
    Documentation quality is a multi-stakeholder problem and cannot be fixed by EHR redesign alone.
    Open questions
    Where the trade-org position diverges from physician-experience surveys when the two conflict.

    Read at journal.ahima.org ↗

  • 2024 · Analyst

    KLAS Research

    Arch Collaborative — Clinician EHR Experience Reports

    The largest ongoing benchmark of clinician EHR sentiment, drawing from hundreds of organizations. Reports vary by EHR vendor and organization, which is the point — outcomes track training and configuration as much as the underlying product.

    Argues
    Clinician EHR experience is a function of organizational investment, not just vendor choice.
    Open questions
    How AI scribe rollouts shift the satisfaction curve once they reach steady state.

    Read at klasresearch.com ↗

  • 2024 · Vendor

    Bluehive Health

    The Healthcare Documentation Crisis: Why AI Isn't a Luxury, It's a Necessity

    The publishers of this site argue that documentation has crossed from administrative friction into a clinical safety issue, and that ambient AI is now table stakes for any practice that wants to keep clinicians at the bedside.

    Argues
    Documentation overhead is now structural; AI assistance is no longer optional.
    Open questions
    Implementation cost, error-mode disclosure, and longitudinal accuracy data across specialties.

    Read at bluehive.com ↗

  • 2021 · Academic

    AMIA / Columbia DBMI / Vanderbilt

    25x5 Symposium: Reducing Documentation Burden to 25% by 2025

    An ambitious cross-institutional target: cut documentation burden to 25% of its 2021 level within five years. Notable for being measurable and time-bound at a moment when most burden discourse was still aspirational.

    Argues
    The field needs a numeric, time-bound burden-reduction target rather than open-ended commitments.
    Open questions
    Where the field actually landed against the 25%-by-2025 goal in retrospect.

    Read at amia.org ↗

  • 2020-02 · Regulator

    Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)

    Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs

    The federal government's own diagnosis of the burden problem, with a four-pillar plan covering documentation, reporting, EHR usability, and public health reporting. Worth reading because it concedes how much of the burden is policy-induced.

    Argues
    Burden reduction requires coordinated change across documentation requirements, reporting programs, and EHR design.
    Open questions
    Five years on: which recommendations were actually implemented, and by whom.

    Read at healthit.gov ↗

  • 2016-12 · Academic

    Annals of Internal Medicine (Sinsky et al.)

    Allocation of Physician Time in Ambulatory Practice: A Time and Motion Study in 4 Specialties

    The foundational time-and-motion study behind almost every burnout statistic you've read. Direct observation of 57 physicians showed roughly half the workday spent on the EHR and desk work.

    Argues
    Physicians spend ~49% of in-office time on EHR/desk work and ~27% on direct patient care.
    Open questions
    How those proportions have shifted with newer EHR builds, scribes, and ambient tools since 2016.

    Read at acpjournals.org ↗

Have a paper that belongs here? Open an issue with a link and we'll consider it for the next revision.