Tethered to the EHR: Primary Care Physician Workload Assessment Using EHR Event Log Data and Time-Motion Observations

PURPOSE Primary care physicians spend nearly 2 hours on electronic health record (EHR) tasks per hour of direct patient care. Demand for non–face-to-face care, such as communication through a patient portal and administrative tasks, is increasing and contributing to burnout. The goal of this study was to assess time allocated by primary care physicians within the EHR as indicated by EHR user-event log data, both during clinic hours (defined as 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday through Friday) and outside clinic hours.

METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 142 family medicine physicians in a single system in southern Wisconsin. All Epic (Epic Systems Corporation) EHR interactions were captured from “event logging” records over a...