Interaction Time with Electronic Health Records: A Systematic Review

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Workflow Analysis
• Human-Computer Interaction in Healthcare

Background:

• The time healthcare clinicians, including physicians and nurses, spend interacting with electronic health records (EHR) is not well understood.
• Understanding EHR interaction time is crucial for assessing clinician workload and system efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically evaluate the time healthcare providers spend interacting with electronic health records (EHR).
• To synthesize findings on EHR interaction duration across different clinical roles and settings.

Main Methods:

• A systematic review of peer-reviewed studies published in English between 1990 and 2021.
• Databases searched included Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and SCOPUS.
• Studies involving time measurements (hours, minutes, or percentage of workday) for physicians and nurses in inpatient and outpatient settings were included.

Main Results:

• Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria from over 5,000 initial references.
• Physicians spent an average of nearly 37% of their workday interacting with EHR, while nurses spent 22% in inpatient settings.
• The majority of included studies were time-motion or logged-based analyses, primarily conducted in the United States within inpatient settings.

Conclusions:

• Physician EHR interaction time exceeds one-third of their workday, indicating significant engagement.
• EHR interaction time varies based on clinician roles, settings, system specifics, and user experience.
• Findings suggest opportunities for enhancing EHR usability, functionality, and workflow optimization to reduce clinician burden.