Dataset Information

How Physicians Spend Their Work Time: an Ecological Momentary Assessment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Little is known about how physicians spend their work time.

Objective

To determine how physicians in outpatient care spend their time at work, using an innovative method: ecological momentary assessment (EMA).

Design

Physician activity was measured via EMA, using a smartphone app.

Participants

Twenty-eight practices across 16 US states. Sixty-one physicians: general internal medicine, family medicine, non-interventional cardiology, orthopedics.

Main measures

Proportions of time spent on 14 activities within 6 broad categories of work: direct patient care (including both face-to-face care and other patient care-related activities), electronic health record (EHR) input, administration, teaching/supervising, personal time, and other.

Key results

After excluding personal time, physicians spent 66.5% of their time on direct patient care (23.6% multitasking with use of the EHR and 42.9% without the EHR), 20.7% on EHR input alone, 7.7% on administrative activities, and 5.0% on other activities (0.6% using the EHR). In total, physicians spent 44.9% of their time on the EHR.

Limitations

Unable to measure time spent at home on the EHR or other work tasks; participating physicians were not a random sample of US physicians.

Conclusions

The efficiency of highly trained professionals spending only two-thirds of their time on direct patient care may be questioned. EHR use continues to account for a large proportion of physician time. Further attempts should be made to redesign both EHRs and physician work processes.

SUBMITTER: Toscano F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7661623 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

How Physicians Spend Their Work Time: an Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Toscano Fabrizio F O'Donnell Eloise E Broderick Joan E JE May Marcella M Tucker Pippa P Unruh Mark A MA Messina Gabriele G Casalino Lawrence P LP

Journal of general internal medicine 20200817 11

<h4>Background</h4>Little is known about how physicians spend their work time.<h4>Objective</h4>To determine how physicians in outpatient care spend their time at work, using an innovative method: ecological momentary assessment (EMA).<h4>Design</h4>Physician activity was measured via EMA, using a smartphone app.<h4>Participants</h4>Twenty-eight practices across 16 US states. Sixty-one physicians: general internal medicine, family medicine, non-interventional cardiology, orthopedics.<h4>Main mea ...[more]

PMID: 32808212

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Dataset Information

How Physicians Spend Their Work Time: an Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Background

Objective

Design

Participants

Main measures

Key results

Limitations

Conclusions

Publications

How Physicians Spend Their Work Time: an Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Similar Datasets

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