The myth of multitasking in primary care

Primary care doctors don’t usually have scheduled blocks of time to read incoming reports, refill prescriptions, answer messages or, what we are told the future will entail, manage their chronic disease populations. Instead, we are generally expected to do all those things “between patients.” This involves doing a little bit of all those things in the invisible space between each fifteen-minute visit, provided we can complete those visits, their documentation and any other work generated in those visits, in less than he fifteen minutes they were slotted for. If we can’t capture (steal, really) enough time from our scheduled visits, we are still expected to somehow get that work done, but then on our own time. This results in most primary care doctors logging in to their EMRs from home after supper and on the weekends. Mismatched workloads and work schedule are a major source of professional burnout. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Primary Care Source Type: blogs