A study from the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University in Providence, R.I., has identified a link between EHR usage and stress among physicians, reports the student newspaper, The Brown Daily Herald.
Rebekah Gardner, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the university, led a team of researchers who added questions about EHR-related stress to a biannual technology survey of every physician in Rhode Island. The survey, which is sponsored by the Rhode Island Department of Health, has been conducted for the past 10 years, but doesn't typically inquire about burdens associated with health IT.
The survey divided respondents by specialty and asked them to identify how many measures — one, two or three — of health IT-related stress they typically experience.
Here is how seven specialties rank in regard to health IT-related stress, according to the percentage of respondents reporting three measures of health IT-related stress:
- Internal medicine
- Family medicine
- Dermatology
- Pediatrics
- Neurology
- Cardiology
- Emergency medicine