Study: Physicians now spend half their time on computer tasks

Editor's Note

Over time, electronic health records (EHRs) show a decline in face-to-face patient assessments by physicians and an increase in computer tasks, this study finds.

Physicians now spend 50% of their time with patients and 50% of their time on computers. 

The analysis included 471 physicians who worked on 31 million EHR transactions from 2011 to 2014.

The researchers recommend that staffing and scheduling in physicians’ offices and provider payment models account for these “desktop medicine” efforts.

Time spent by physicians is a key resource in health care delivery. This study used data captured by the access time stamp functionality of an electronic health record (EHR) to examine physician work effort. This is a potentially powerful, yet unobtrusive, way to study physicians' use of time.