Top specialties for EHR time – a slideshow

As a physician, if you think you spend a lot of time working on patient data in electronic health records (EHRs) – you’re correct. You do.

So, which doctors spend the most time?

The American Medical Association (AMA) tallied data from more than 200,000 physicians to see which ones spend the most time working in EHRs. The findings show that they all do – an average of 5.8 hours of electronic documentation and coding for every eight hours scheduled for patient care.

“The study highlights how, 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,” lead author Christine A. Sinsky, MD, said in an AMA report on the results. Sinsky also is AMA vice president of professional satisfaction.

This slideshow presents the top five specialties that spend the most time in EHRs per eight hours of schedule patient care.

Spoiler alert: Primary care is on the list.

All data come from the study, “National Comparison of Ambulatory Physician Electronic Health Record Use Across Specialties,” a concise research report published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, and the AMA report, “Five physician specialties that spend the most time in the EHR.”