Capturing clinical questions during medical residents' workflow

We studied the feasibility of capturing clinical questions in an inpatient setting during workflow by providing five internal medicine residents with digital recorders. We found that most of questions collected were recorded during chart documentation, that possessing the recorder prompted residents to ask more questions than they might have otherwise, and that questions were often asked only after consultation with readily available information sources such as Epocrates. Our results suggest that capturing questions during workflow on a busy hospital ward is feasible and may unmask latent information needs.