Impact of electronic health record technology on the work and workflow of physicians in the intensive care unit

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This is the review of the article “ Impact of electronic health record technology on the work and workflow of physicians in the intensive care unit” by Carayon et al “[1].

objective

The main objective of the study is to assess the impact of EHR technology on the work and workflow of ICU physicians and compare time spent by resident and attending physician on various tasks before and after implementation.

Introduction

Few studies have assesed the impact of various forms of EHR technology on specific physicians tasks such as documentation. A few studies have examined the EHR implementaion in hosp[itals and their impact on physician work. After CPOE implementation in Massachusetts Geneal hospital, interns time spent weiting orferes went from 2.1% to 9% of their total work time and was asscoiated with less time talking and reading.A systemic review of research on the impact of CPOE documentation physician work time confirmed that EHR technology tends to increase documentation time. This study was conducted to assess the impact of CPOE and EHR technology on the physician work time.

Methods

This was an observational study used as a prospective pre post design around EHR implementation. Pre implementation data were collected from august to november 2006 while post implementation data were collected from January to March 2008. An EHR techonology that included electronic order management (e.g CPOE, electronic medication administration, and pharmacy sytem) and physician documnetation was implemeted hospital wide in October 2007. This stdudy was done in threee ICU of rural hospital. Total 289 hours of observation pre and post EHR implementauin data were collected. The direct observation of the residents and physician work in ICU was done.

Result

Study result shows that CPOE implementation had an impact on time distribution of tasks as wello as the temporal patterns of tasks. Agre implemtetaion, residents and attending physicians pent more of their time on clinical review and documentation. It also affected their frequency of switching between tasks.

conclusion

The use of EHR technology such as CPOE has a major impact on ICU physician work and work flow.

Comments

This study only obsereved the time spend on documentation ,but it also has to examine the how the CPOE implementation has led to improve in quality of care and workflow.

References

  1. Carayon, P., et al. (2015). "Impact of electronic health record technology on the work and workflow of physicians in the intensive care unit." Int J Med Inform.