Assessing Primary Care Clinic Operational Strategies via EMR Data Mining

Understanding how operational strategies impact critical performance metrics is critical to the clinic's ability to provide a value-based service to patients. This study investigated the utility of electronic medical record (EMR) audit file data in assessing operational strategies. EMR data were used to assess patient appointment lengths and conclude that shorter scheduled patient visit lengths, which resulted from one operational strategy (physician choice of visit lengths), had a negative impact on a second operational strategy (minimizing patient wait times). Patients with 15-minute appointments had a higher total mean wait time and shorter provider care or contact time.