Everyday Ethical Dilemmas Arising With Electronic Record Use in Primary Care

Abstract

The introduction of electronic medical record systems (EMRs) into primary care settings alters work practices, introduces new challenges, and new roles. In the process of integrating an EMR into a primary care setting, clinic staff faced ethical challenges in their everyday work practices resulting from workarounds undertaken to compensate for a poor fit between system design and work practices, issues related to system access, and governance gaps. Examples of these issues are presented, and implications for system design are discussed.