Documentation woes: Study tracks residents’ time spent on EHRs

How much time do your peers really spend dealing with electronic health records (EHR)? One internal medicine program explored that question and tracked the average “mouse miles”–or active time—residents spent using EHRs, and the results were very telling. Find out how many hours residents spent on EHRs in just four months, and see how you compare. Exploring EHR usage among first-year residents A team of researchers tracked the active EHR usage of 41 first-year residents at a university-affiliated community teaching hospital for the months of May, July and October 2014, and January 2015. During this time, “active EHR usage time was tallied for each patient chart viewed each day and was termed an electronic patient record encounter,” researchers recently wrote in a study published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. “The EHR usage activities within the electronic patient record encounter included chart reviews, orders, chart documentation and other activities.” They also tracked the time first-year residents spent using resources within the EHR system, such as “as communicating with providers via text-paging and crosschecking regulatory, medical or peer-reviewed resources,” according to the study. The results: Time residents spent on EHR and key behaviors Using a built-in time tracking program within the hospital’s EHR, authors of the study found that: Each resident spent an average of 112 hours per month on 206 electronic patient...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news