Swiss medical residents spend more time with PC than patients

8 years ago - Published in Finance, Fundamental Analysis

Medical residents at a Swiss teaching hospital spend almost half of their workday on the computer, which is approximately three times the amount of time they spend with patients, according to a Swiss study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers conducted a time and motion study to evaluate how residents spend their time during day and evening hospital shifts. From May to July 2015, they studied 36 Swiss internal medicine residents with an average of 29 months of postgraduate training. 

Residents spent 52.4% of their time on activities indirectly related to patients compared to 28% of their time on activities directly related to patients during day shifts. On average, residents spend 1.7 hours per day with patients, compared with 5.2 hours using computers, and 13 minutes doing both.

“The structure of a resident's workday has changed dramatically in recent decades, with limitations on hours worked per week, wide implementation of electronic medical records (EMRs), and a growing volume of clinical data and administrative tasks,” Nathalie Wenger, MD, from Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, and colleagues wrote.
 
“The large amount of time dedicated to computer use or other activities not centered on the patient could lead to dissatisfaction of residents due to the limited medical value of such activities and could also increase the risk for burnout,” they concluded. “Thus, our results suggest the need to rethink residents' work organization to fit the digital age.”

The authors suggest several interventions for improving the allocation of residents' time, including increasing the number of residents per patient, although doing so may be cost-prohibitive; delegating administrative tasks, which account for 40 minutes per day of residents' time in the current study; optimizing documentation support via speech or writing recognition systems or scribes; and improving/redefining documentation procedures and the "ergonomics" of EHRs, which "still fail to capture and synthesize the growing amount and complexity of clinical data."