Majority of EHR Progress Notes Are Copied and Pasted or Imported, Says Study

​The majority of progress notes in electronic health record (EHR) systems are either copied and pasted or imported, according to a research letter published May 30, 2017, in JAMA Internal Medicine. Traditionally, the authors said, the goal of progress notes is to provide up-to-date, concise reflections on a patient's condition, as well as a physician's thought process. EHR systems allow users to supplement manual data with copy-and-pasted or imported notes. The authors analyzed 23,630 inpatient progress notes written by 460 clinicians and found that in a typical note, just 18% of the text had been entered manually.