Emergency medicine residents spend over 7.5 months of their 3-year residency on the electronic health record.

electronic health records emergency medicine graduate medical education internship residency work hours

Journal

AEM education and training
ISSN: 2472-5390
Titre abrégé: AEM Educ Train
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101722142

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
Aug 2021
Historique:
received: 16 07 2021
revised: 22 09 2021
accepted: 23 09 2021
entrez: 25 10 2021
pubmed: 26 10 2021
medline: 26 10 2021
Statut: epublish

Résumé

Use of the electronic health record (EHR) is a standard component of modern patient care. Although EHRs have improved since inception, cumbersome workflows decrease the time for residents to spend on clinical and educational activities. This study aims to quantify the time spent interacting with the EHR during a 3-year emergency medicine (EM) residency. System records of time spent actively engaged in EHR use were analyzed for 98 unique EM residents over a period of 5 years from July 2015 to June 2020. Time spent on the EHR was totaled to give a career time, with a "work month" defined as a 4-week period of 70.5 h per week, based on Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education work hour restrictions for EM residents. Engagement in specific activities such as chart review, documentation preparation, and order entry were separately analyzed. Over their 3-year training, a resident interacted with the EHR for 2,171 continuous hours. This amounts to 30.8 work weeks or 7.7 work months. Chart review was the most time-intensive activity at 11.42 weeks. Documentation accounted for 9.91 weeks, with an average career total of 7,280 notes created. Additionally, each resident spent 4.57 weeks on order entry, with 46,347 orders entered during training. While the number of charts opened increased after first year of residency, average time spent on each activity per patient decreased. This unique study quantifies the total time an EM resident spends on the EHR during a 3-year residency. Use of the EHR accounted for over 7.5 work months or nearly 21% of their training. Residents spend a substantial portion of their training interacting with the EHR and workflow improvements to reduce EHR time are critical for maximizing training time.

Sections du résumé

BACKGROUND BACKGROUND
Use of the electronic health record (EHR) is a standard component of modern patient care. Although EHRs have improved since inception, cumbersome workflows decrease the time for residents to spend on clinical and educational activities. This study aims to quantify the time spent interacting with the EHR during a 3-year emergency medicine (EM) residency.
METHODS METHODS
System records of time spent actively engaged in EHR use were analyzed for 98 unique EM residents over a period of 5 years from July 2015 to June 2020. Time spent on the EHR was totaled to give a career time, with a "work month" defined as a 4-week period of 70.5 h per week, based on Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education work hour restrictions for EM residents. Engagement in specific activities such as chart review, documentation preparation, and order entry were separately analyzed.
RESULTS RESULTS
Over their 3-year training, a resident interacted with the EHR for 2,171 continuous hours. This amounts to 30.8 work weeks or 7.7 work months. Chart review was the most time-intensive activity at 11.42 weeks. Documentation accounted for 9.91 weeks, with an average career total of 7,280 notes created. Additionally, each resident spent 4.57 weeks on order entry, with 46,347 orders entered during training. While the number of charts opened increased after first year of residency, average time spent on each activity per patient decreased.
CONCLUSIONS CONCLUSIONS
This unique study quantifies the total time an EM resident spends on the EHR during a 3-year residency. Use of the EHR accounted for over 7.5 work months or nearly 21% of their training. Residents spend a substantial portion of their training interacting with the EHR and workflow improvements to reduce EHR time are critical for maximizing training time.

Identifiants

pubmed: 34693185
doi: 10.1002/aet2.10697
pii: AET210697
pmc: PMC8517589
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Pagination

e10697

Informations de copyright

© 2021 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors have no potential conflicts to disclose.

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Auteurs

Elizabeth Olson (E)

Department of Emergency Medicine Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Chelsea Rushnell (C)

Department of Emergency Medicine Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Ahsan Khan (A)

Morehouse School of Medicine Atlanta Georgia USA.

Kyle W Cunningham (KW)

Department of Surgery Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Bryant Allen (B)

Department of Emergency Medicine Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Sean M Fox (SM)

Department of Emergency Medicine Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Ronald F Sing (RF)

Department of Surgery Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Gaurav Sachdev (G)

Department of Surgery Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health Charlotte North Carolina USA.

Classifications MeSH