Metrics aim to provide insight into the clinician experience in light of impaired practice efficiency
TUESDAY, Oct. 10, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Novel metrics have been developed to assess electronic health record (EHR) use and are described in an opinion article published online Oct. 9 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Noting that the EHR has impaired practice efficiency, largely because of poor design, Yumi T. DiAngi, M.D., from Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues proposed a set of EHR-related metrics to provide insight into the clinician experience.
The researchers proposed six categories to measure EHR use. These include Work After Work, which captures the hours a clinician spends logged in to the EHR during non-work hours; Click Counts, which tracks the number of clicks per day or per task and could help to guide local changes such as badge log-in or optimization of pathways for high-volume tasks; and Teamwork, which measures the ratio of staff-entered to physician-entered EHR tasks to ascertain how well tasks are distributed to appropriate team roles. In addition, measures include Being Present, which captures rates of visits in which the EHR tasks compete for physician attention; Fair Pay, which assesses uncompensated EHR work, including answering patient e-mails; and Regulatory Balance, which draws attention to the regulatory effect on practice that is captured by the EHR.
“We believe that our metrics will identify the burdens of inefficient practice so administrators and clinicians can work together to improve professional fulfillment,” the authors write.
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