eWasted time: Redundant work during hospital admission and discharge

Potential unintended consequences of health information technology include fragmentation of workflow and redundant work. We could not identify any prior direct observation studies that quantified redundant work related to health information technology in the clinical setting. Our objective was to quantify redundant work during admission and discharge to our general internal medicine service at an academic medical center. We performed a time and motion study at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada. We observed 13 clinicians performing an admission or a discharge, and the type and length of each task was recorded using an Apple iPad tablet. We identified redundant tasks related to health information technology and calculated the time spent completing these tasks. We found that 22 percent of clinician time was spent on redundant tasks. Our finding highlights the importance of workflow and software integration when implementing health information technology.