Clinical Reminders: Why Don't they use them?

There are many potential benefits associated with the use of computerized clinical reminders for both health care providers and patients. Clinical reminders are designed to reduce the likelihood that an aspect of care will “fall though the cracks” during a busy exam, ensure that care is well-documented so that the range of health care providers interacting with each patient will have full access to the patient history, and increase standardization across patient exams. While most agree that the concept of clinical reminders is good, recent research indicates that some providers do not use clinical reminders when available (Demakis et al, 2000). This paper describes the qualitative portion of a survey study aimed at exploring the perceived facilitators and barriers to clinical reminder use within Veterans Administration health care facilities.