You probably hear a ding or get a vibration in your pocket a few times a day from your cell phone, and while the device let’s you stay connected with the outside world, sometimes those notifications can bog you down. That sentiment rings especially true for doctors.
According to a study of primary care physicians out of Texas, doctors see their inbox fill up on a constant basis. In some industries, business is done over email, but a doctor is rarely providing his or her best care if they are stuck behind a computer. The study examined 82 primary care physicians, 46 multi-specialty clinicians and their inboxes. On average, the 92 primary care physicians received 77 notifications a day while 46 other specialists received an average of 29 daily notifications, for topics like responses to referrals, medication refill requests and messages from other healthcare professionals. Averages tended to vary by clinics, with some averaging mid-60s, while another clinic averageed 114 per day.
“Extrapolating this finding to commercial EHRs suggests that physicians spend an estimated 66.8 minutes per day processing notifications, which likely adds a substantial burden to their workday,” the authors wrote.
As we mentioned above, not only does this place a bigger burden on doctors, but it also takes them away from their patients.
“I should be so lucky as to have only 77 in-basket messages; it averages way over 100 for me, more like 110 to 140,” Dr. Richard Roberts of the University of Wisconsin-Belleville said in a phone interview with MedPage Today. “The more time I spend fussing with in-basket, the less time I spend talking to patients. It never ends; it’s a constant, and that gets discouraging for docs.”
Electronic Health Record Study
Over the six-month study, the 92 primary care physicians received a total of 267,207 notifications. The majority of these notifications are helpful and doctors note that the emails help facilitate the flow of information, but they still get bogged down with unimportant messages that should be best handled by someone else.
“I completely agree with the authors that because it is easier to share information, that also increases the amount of information that is shared,” Nancy Lynn Keating, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told MedPage Today in an email. “Yet it remains challenging for physicians to separate the important information from the unimportant.”
Dr. Silverman Comments
I also agree that physicians are becoming more bogged down with emails, notifications and electronic forms. It’s the nature of the business in some aspects, but when I’m responding to emails I’m not helping the next person in the waiting room. As a doctor you get better are prioritizing and ensuring that the patients in your office get your attention first, but I constantly find myself up late at night or waking up early to respond to emails. It certainly puts a heavy burden on the physician, whose main focus should be the patient, and I think we need to look into re-evaluating or are least re-prioritizing the electronic system.
