Doctors are spending more time in front of their computers than with their patients these days. The reason: The rise of electronic medical records, as pushed by new federal laws, according to a new report by a trio of Boston-area doctors.

Drs. John Levinson, Bruce H. Price, and Vikas Saini tell the Boston Globe doctors spend up to half of patient appointments “serving not the needs of her patient, but of the electronic medical record.”

They note that EMRs were supposed to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare, and provide instant access to vital patient information.

“Instead, EMRs have become the bane of doctors and nurses everywhere,” they argue. “They are the medical equivalent of texting while driving, sucking the soul out of the practice of medicine while failing to improve care.”

To fix the problem, they urge hospital administrators and clinicians to work together to demand better products from EMR manufacturers and to urge government to relax several provisions of the HITECH Act, the 2009 law that spawned many of the problems with EMRs.

Levinson is a cardiologist and internist at Massachusetts General Hospital; Price is chief of the Department of Neurology at McLean Hospital; and Saini is a cardiologist, the president of the Lown Institute and co-chair of the Right Care Alliance.