A Jay Holmgren1, Lisa Rotenstein2, Norman Lance Downing3, David W Bates2, Kevin Schulman4. 1. Department of Medicine, Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA. 2. Department of General Internal Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 3. Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. 4. Department of Medicine, Clinical Excellence Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Clinicians spend significant time working in the electronic health record (EHR). The US is an outlier in EHR time, suggesting that EHR-related work may be driven in part by the legal environment and threat of malpractice. To assess this, we evaluate the association between state-level malpractice climate and clinician time spent in the EHR. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We use EHR metadata from 351 ambulatory care health systems in the United States using Epic from January-August 2019 combined with state-level data on malpractice incidence and payouts. We used descriptive statistics to measure variation in clinician EHR time, including total EHR time, documentation time per day, and after-hours EHR time per day. Multi-variable regression evaluated the association between clinicians in high malpractice states and EHR use. RESULTS: We found no association between location in a state in the top-quartile of malpractice payouts and time spent in the EHR per day, time spent in the EHR outside of scheduled hours, or time spent documenting per day, except for a subgroup of the clinicians in the highest malpractice specialties, where there was a small increase in EHR time per day (B = 6.08 min, P < 0.001) and time spent documenting notes (B = 2.77 min, P < 0.001). DISCUSSION: State-level differences in malpractice incidence are unlikely to be a significant driver of EHR work for most clinicians. CONCLUSION: Policymakers seeking to address EHR documentation burden should examine burden driven by other socio-technical demands on clinician time, such as billing or quality measurement.
OBJECTIVE: Clinicians spend significant time working in the electronic health record (EHR). The US is an outlier in EHR time, suggesting that EHR-related work may be driven in part by the legal environment and threat of malpractice. To assess this, we evaluate the association between state-level malpractice climate and clinician time spent in the EHR. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We use EHR metadata from 351 ambulatory care health systems in the United States using Epic from January-August 2019 combined with state-level data on malpractice incidence and payouts. We used descriptive statistics to measure variation in clinician EHR time, including total EHR time, documentation time per day, and after-hours EHR time per day. Multi-variable regression evaluated the association between clinicians in high malpractice states and EHR use. RESULTS: We found no association between location in a state in the top-quartile of malpractice payouts and time spent in the EHR per day, time spent in the EHR outside of scheduled hours, or time spent documenting per day, except for a subgroup of the clinicians in the highest malpractice specialties, where there was a small increase in EHR time per day (B = 6.08 min, P < 0.001) and time spent documenting notes (B = 2.77 min, P < 0.001). DISCUSSION: State-level differences in malpractice incidence are unlikely to be a significant driver of EHR work for most clinicians. CONCLUSION: Policymakers seeking to address EHR documentation burden should examine burden driven by other socio-technical demands on clinician time, such as billing or quality measurement.
Authors: Jan Walker; Eric Pan; Douglas Johnston; Julia Adler-Milstein; David W Bates; Blackford Middleton Journal: Health Aff (Millwood) Date: 2005 Jan-Jun Impact factor: 6.301
Authors: Shasha Han; Tait D Shanafelt; Christine A Sinsky; Karim M Awad; Liselotte N Dyrbye; Lynne C Fiscus; Mickey Trockel; Joel Goh Journal: Ann Intern Med Date: 2019-05-28 Impact factor: 25.391