Study: Primary care physicians spend half their day on EHR tasks

Primary care physicians spend more than half of their workday performing data entry and other tasks with electronic health records, according to a new study in the Annals of Family Medicine. The study included 142 physicians at family medicine clinics associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. Based on EHR event logs and direct observation, researchers at the University of Wisconsin and American Medical Association found the physicians spent nearly six hours on EHR tasks during and after clinical hours in a typical 11.4-hour workday. “This study reveals what many primary care physicians already know – data entry tasks associated with EHR systems are significantly cutting into available time for physicians to engage with patients,” said AMA President David Barbe, M.D., a family physician from Mountain Grove, MO.