Physician Satisfaction with Order Entry Systems

To the Editor: —I read with interest the recent article by Murff and Kannry on physician satisfaction with computerized order entry systems.1 In brief, house staff were fairly satisfied with one system, and displeased with another. The authors conclude that user satisfaction is an important marker for the usability of any system, and that not all order entry systems are created equal. They further stress that only well-received, high-quality order entry systems should be implemented. When I was a resident in 1990, our tertiary-care teaching hospital in Calgary, Canada, installed a commercially available patient information system, complete with physician order entry. The institution's official name for the system was OSCAR (Online System for Communication and Records), but it soon became known as FRED (Friggin' Ridiculous …