KLAS Report Finds Nurses Far Less Satisfied With EHRs Than Physicians

Overview

• KLAS published the Clinician EHR Experience 2026 impact report on Friday showing results from 92 health systems and more than 121,000 clinicians measured from May 2025 to May 2026.
• Only 12% of nursing cohorts reached the top EHR tier compared with 22% of physician cohorts, and nurses are much more likely to be in struggling or basic experience levels.
• Documentation burden is nurses' top complaint, with prior KLAS data showing 79% of nurses lose time to duplicative or click‑heavy charting that reduces efficiency and increases frustration.
• Ambient speech and documentation AI has delivered clear time savings and less after‑hours charting for many physicians, but adoption and training clarity remain uneven across roles.
• Organizations that used clinician‑centered optimization practices such as staggered onboarding, clinician governance, and vendor collaboration saw measurable gains in Net EHR Experience Score—an average rise of 6.2 points for remeasured sites and seven organizations gaining 15 points or more—while 47% of clinicians still report trouble finding or reconciling external patient data, a problem often worse on non‑Epic systems.