Trends in Inpatient Admission Comorbidity and Electronic Health Data: Implications for Resident Workload Intensity

In the era of duty hour regulations, there is increasing concern regarding resident workload compression. We conducted a retrospective, observational assessment of all internal medicine resident admissions to a Veterans Affairs hospital over a 15-year period to evaluate several admission components that impact resident workload and workload intensity, including electronic health record (EHR) data burden and patient comorbidity. A total of 67,346 admissions were included in the analysis. Mean patient comorbidity, as measured by the Charlson Comorbidity Index, increased throughout the study period. EHR data burden, measured by numbers of notes, medications, and discharge summaries available per patient at the time of admission, also increased over the study period. These findings suggest that EHR data burden and comorbidity have increased over time, which impacts resident workload in the era of duty hour restrictions.