1168 Time Spent on Ambulatory Electronic Health Records Outside of Scheduled Work Hours by Gastroenterology Physicians

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The introduction of electronic health records (EHR) has been linked to physician burnout. This study aims to quantify the time gastroenterology physicians spend on ambulatory EHR outside of scheduled work hours. METHODS: Data was collected for time spent in ambulatory EHR for the eight-week period 02/03/2019 - 03/30/2019. Cumulative scheduled time was calculated for each physician. Hospital-based clinical encounters and time spent in hospital-based EHR were excluded from analysis. Ratios of ambulatory EHR time to scheduled time were calculated. We also analyzed data on physician FTE status, post-fellowship experience, new patient visit time interval, and correlated these data with the aforementioned ratio. P-values < 0.05 were considered significant. This study was reviewed by our Institutional Review Board, and a waiver was obtained. RESULTS: Data was available for 41 providers; 18 providers were excluded (5 non-physicians, 3 with FTE status < 0.2, 2 pediatric gastroenterologists, 8 without available scheduled time data). Data were analyzed for 23 gastroenterology physicians with 7,373 ambulatory encounters (3465 office visits, 310 office-based procedures, and 3598 ASC) across 4 sites. The average weekly time spent in EHR was 41.30 ± 11.73 hours, and the average weekly scheduled time was 24.48 ± 7.64 hours. Correspondingly, the average ratio of EHR time to scheduled time was determined to be 1.78 ± 0.70. Part-time and full-time physicians were also compared. There was a greater proportion of males in the full-time group rather than the part-time group (90.91% vs. 58.33%, P = 0.076). In addition, there was a trend towards a higher ratio of EHR time to scheduled time for part-time physicians (1.99 ± 0.88 vs. 1.56 ± 0.36), although this was not statistically significant (P = 0.15). The only statistically significant predictor of ratio was FTE status, treated as a continuous variable; the slope of the linear regression model was -3.06 ± 0.83 (P = 0.001) and the corresponding R2 was 0.39. Neither experience, in years after fellowship, nor new patient visit interval, were correlated with ratio. CONCLUSION: Our data show that gastroenterology physicians spend significant time outside of their scheduled time on EHR-related tasks. More studies are needed to better understand the distribution of time across different tasks; targeted countermeasures, such automation and utilization of non-physician staff, may help reduce the burden of EHR time and, correspondingly, the risk for physician burnout.