Some health systems have turned to a team-based approach to help reduce physicians' documentation burden in the EHR. But is it working?
A national study of over 18,000 physicians found the adoption of notes co-authored by other clinical team members was associated with a significant hike in appointment volumes and drops in documentation time in the EHR, including "pajama time," or after-hours work. The time savings, specifically, was only realized by high-intensity adopters, or physicians who had co-authors on at least 40% of their notes.
The Aug. 26 study in JAMA Internal Medicine analyzed EHR metadata from September 2020 to April 2021 with a sample that was 57.2% primary care physicians, 31.6% medical specialists, and 11.2% surgical specialists, with 40% practicing in academic settings and 18.4% in outpatient safety-net clinics. The study's authors are affiliated with College Park, Md.-based University of Maryland School of Public Health, University of California at San Francisco, and Minneapolis-based University of Minnesota School of Public Health.