Electronic health records and burnout: Time spent on the electronic health record after hours and message volume associated with exhaustion but not with cynicism among primary care clinicians

The study sought to determine whether objective measures of electronic health record (EHR) use-related to time, volume of work, and proficiency-are associated with either or both components of clinician burnout: exhaustion and cynicism. We combined Maslach Burnout Inventory survey measures (94% resp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA Vol. 27; no. 4; p. 531
Main Authors: Adler-Milstein, Julia, Zhao, Wendi, Willard-Grace, Rachel, Knox, Margae, Grumbach, Kevin
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England 01.04.2020
Subjects:
Academic Medical Centers
Attitude of Health Personnel
Burnout, Professional - etiology
Electronic Health Records - statistics & numerical data
Fatigue - etiology
Female
Humans
Male
Physicians, Primary Care - psychology
San Francisco
Surveys and Questionnaires
Workload - psychology
Workload - statistics & numerical data
San Francisco
EHR optimization
EHR use
clinician burnout
ISSN:1527-974X, 1527-974X
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Summary:The study sought to determine whether objective measures of electronic health record (EHR) use-related to time, volume of work, and proficiency-are associated with either or both components of clinician burnout: exhaustion and cynicism. We combined Maslach Burnout Inventory survey measures (94% response rate; 122 of 130 clinicians) with objective, vendor-defined EHR use measures from log files (time after hours on clinic days; time on nonclinic days; message volume; composite measures of efficiency and proficiency). Data were collected in early 2018 from all primary care clinics of a large, urban, academic medical center. Multivariate regression models measured the association between each burnout component and each EHR use measure. One-third (34%) of clinicians had high cynicism and 51% had high emotional exhaustion. Clinicians in the top 2 quartiles of EHR time after hours on scheduled clinic days (those above the sample median of 68 minutes per clinical full-time equivalent per week) had 4.78 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1-20.1; P = .04) and 12.52 (95% CI, 2.6-61; P = .002) greater odds of high exhaustion. Clinicians in the top quartile of message volume (>307 messages per clinical full-time equivalent per week) had 6.17 greater odds of high exhaustion (95% CI, 1.1-41; P = .04). No measures were associated with high cynicism. EHRs have been cited as a contributor to clinician burnout, and self-reported data suggest a relationship between EHR use and burnout. As organizations increasingly rely on objective, vendor-defined EHR measures to design and evaluate interventions to reduce burnout, our findings point to the measures that should be targeted. Two specific EHR use measures were associated with exhaustion.
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ISSN:1527-974X
1527-974X
DOI:10.1093/jamia/ocz220