Reserving daily time for EHR work only slightly decreases physician productivity, suggesting that alleviating clinician burnout in this fashion may not compromise revenue, a Dec. 2 JAMA Network Open study found.
Here are five things to know from the research led by New Haven, Conn.-based Yale School of Medicine that included 130 internists from a large ambulatory practice in the western U.S.:
1. Each physician in the study’s “intervention” group was given one dedicated appointment slot per half-day, about 20-30 minutes, for asynchronous tasks such as EHR work, messages and prescription refills.
2. After-hours and nonworkday EHR use dropped by about 53 minutes per physician.
3. Their productivity — measured by relative value units, aka RVUs — dropped only a small amount, from 48.7 to 45.1 per week.
4. At first, patient messages in the intervention group increased by 3.39 per week before declining postintervention to 0.32 messages a week.
5. Physician burnout was 81% lower after the intervention.
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