Time-motion examination of electronic health record utilization and clinician workflows indicate frequent task switching and documentation burden. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Clinical documentation burden has been broadly acknowledged, yet few interprofessional measures of burden exist. Using interprofessional time-motion study (TMS) data, we evaluated clinical workflows with a focus on electronic health record (EHR) utilization and fragmentation among 47 clinicians: 34 advanced practice providers (APPs) and 13 registered nurses (RNs) from: an acute care unit (n=15 observations [obs]), intensive care unit (nobs=14), ambulatory clinic (nobs=3), and emergency department (nobs=15). We examined workflow fragmentation, task-switch type, and task involvement. In our study, clinicians on average exhibited 1.4±0.6 switches per minute in their workflow. Eighty-four (19.6%) of the 429 task-switch types presented in the data accounted for 80.1% of all switches. Among those, data viewing- and data entry-related tasks were involved in 48.2% of all switches, indicating documentation burden may play a critical role in workflow disruptions. Therefore, interruption rate evaluated through task switches may serve as a proxy for measuring burden.

publication date

  • January 25, 2021

Research

keywords

  • Documentation
  • Electronic Health Records
  • Workflow

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC8075533

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85105360244

PubMed ID

  • 33936464

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 2020