Are electronic medical records providing doctors with too much information?

Of course, doctors have plenty of trouble tracking masses of test results on faxes and paper, too. The research letter does not address the rate at which providers missed or overlooked test result information when using solely paper records for patients.

But still, 87 percent of the health providers surveyed said they found the number of alerts to be “excessive.” And about 70 percent said they were getting more notifications than they found manageable, according to the research letter.

And those providers who said they received more notifications than they could handle were more likely to report missing some test results.