Evaluating the impact of EHR on clinical reasoning performance: A TTF perspective

The proliferation of Electronic Health Records (EHR) as a backbone for healthcare delivery necessitates adequate tools for evaluating and improving the efficacy of such investments particularly as it relates to clinical reasoning performance. However, a thorough review of the literature indicates lack of a tested, validated instrument for evaluating and predicting the impact of EHR use on clinical reasoning performance. Despite successful application to a variety of other industries, TTF has not been adequately adapted to healthcare, EHR technology or the clinical reasoning task. Accordingly, the objectives of this research are to: 1) produce a valid instrument with diagnostic and predictive capabilities for evaluation of clinical reasoning performance with electronic health records, and 2) extend and validate the TTF model to the clinical domain with an emphasis on specification of the clinical reasoning task and EHR technology characteristic