Opportunities and Challenges With the Use of Electronic Health Records in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex Ile Ife and Federal Medical Center Owo

Electronic Health Records (EHR) are digital versions of a patient's paper medical records. They contain comprehensive information about a patient's medical history, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, immunization records, laboratory test results, and more. EHR systems are designed to store, manage, and exchange health information securely between healthcare providers. The general objective of this study is to assess the knowledge on the opportunity and challenges of electronic health records in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC) Ile Ife and Federal Medical Center (FMC) Owo. Specifically, the study assess the level of knowledge on the use and practice of electronic health record, examine the impact of Electronic health record on quality health care, explore the opportunity on the use of electronic health record in improving health care system. investigate he challenges face by healthcare providers on the effective use of electronic health record in OAUTHC and FMC owoStratified random sampling technique was use to sample the entire population of 2291of Healthcareprofessionals,thatsampled340respondentsand310questionnaireswereretrievedin OAUTHCIle-IfeandFMC,Owo.andtheresponserateachievedwas95.2%.Datawerecollected through online Google questionnaires and a reliability test using Cronbach's alpha (? = 0.772) confirmed the consistency of the questionnaire. The result was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), employing methods such as simple percentage, mean, standarddeviationandpiecharts.Additionally,therelativemeanwascalculatedtodeterminethe leading factors for each objective,Resultsrevealedthatmostrespondents96.8%areconfidentinusingEHRsystemsandunderstand basic functionalities. Training on patient information handling is adequate, and there's a strong belief that EHR improves efficiency (94.8%). Respondents are comfortable troubleshooting but also express concerns about data protection 99.0%. Also, on the impact of EHR on healthcare qualityislargelypositive,with97.4%believingitenhancesoverallcare.There'sconsensusonits convenience, reliability (99.6%), and communication improvement (100%). However, data protection concerns persist, and some respondents seek better ongoing support and training to optimize EHR usage and satisfaction.The study concluded that EHR systems significantly enhance the overall quality of healthcare. It is therefore recommended that hospital management should provide electronic health records (EHRs) tools that provides an opportunity for healthcare providers to access patient data more efficiently.