Today, every patient visit brings with it the need to update their EHR, adding to doctors’ workloads. Recent studies have revealed that the amount of time physicians are spending on EHR use could possibly be impeding their performance. As a result, there is an urgent need to restore balance to EHR use for modern medical practices.
Top Five Medical Specialities that Spend Maximum Time Using EHRs
In July 2024, the American Medical Association (AMA) backed a study that tracked the amount of time physicians from different specialties spent using EHRs. The study included data from over 200,000 physicians working across 396 organizations. On average, physicians spend 5.8 hours of active EHR time for every eight hours spent providing patient care.
Some specialties are even more demanding. Based on the data from the AMA study, here are the five physician specialties that spend the most time using EHRs:
1. Hematology
Hematologists specializing in treating blood-related diseases and disorders spend 7.2 hours working with EHRs.
2. Primary Care
Physicians providing family care and internal medicine come next, spending 7.3 hours on EHRs.
3. Nephrology
Nephrologists, who work toward the preservation of kidney health and treatment of kidney diseases, spend 7.5 hours on EHR work.
4. Endocrinology
Specialist physicians who treat problems of the endocrine system, like hormonal imbalances, spend 7.7 hours on EHRs.
5. Infectious Disease
The most egregious amount of time spent on EHR was by physicians treating infectious and transmissible diseases, at an average of 8.4 hours of EHR time.
This amount of active EHR time is well above average, and most of it is carried out outside the physicians’ scheduled working hours.
“With all of the important clinical work physicians do plus all the mandatory clerical work that’s been added to their daily responsibility, EHR-based work competes with our ability to provide our undivided attention to our patients,” said Christine A. Sinsky, the study’s lead author.
The study’s goal was to highlight the existing inefficiencies in the EHR system. The AMA has put together a playbook, “Taming the EHR Playbook,” to help physicians reduce the burden of EHR work at their medical practices.
How Online Forms Can Streamline EHR Use
While the AMA playbook is a good starting point, physicians should also use other tools that can help streamline their EHR use. One such tool is FormDr, which allows practices to conveniently send and receive HIPAA-compliant forms online. This reduces the time spent on EHR-related tasks.
One of the simplest ways to reduce active EHR time is to eliminate unnecessary clicks and keystrokes, where FormDr is extremely useful. FormDr integrates directly with several popular EHR systems to enable improved interoperability.
FormDr EHR Integrations
FormDr follows Health Level Seven International (HL7), which is a set of international criteria that governs the safe and secure transfer of clinical and administrative data, and ensures strict standards for all form uploads. The EHR system integrations supported by FormDr include the following:
- athenahealth
- Epic
- eClinicalWorks
- Mindbody
- ModMed
With FormDr, doctors can look forward to focusing more on providing healthcare services to the best of their ability without having to bear the burden of additional record-keeping work.
