Doctors Spend Half Their Day Doing Desk Work
I recently had a routine preventive medicine check-up and was pleasantly surprised when my doctor sat down directly facing me while he took a detailed history. He then did a thorough examination after which he discussed his findings before asking if I had any questions. This young physician who I was seeing for the first time did all this in a manner which made me feel like I had his undivided attention, even though I knew he must be very busy.
This is the way I was trained to ‘see’ patients, but, unfortunately, all too often health care providers now sit facing a computer while they take the history and then do only a cursory examination. Physicians are not to blame for this change in how medicine is practiced. All this has come about because health care providers are overwhelmed with regulations and are under constant pressure to cut costs. Other factors that contribute to this shift away from doctor-to-patient ‘face time’ include the transition to electronic medical records, the need to practice defensive medicine due to fear of frivolous malpractice law suits and the additional time that now must be spent answering patient concerns raised by ‘Dr. Google’.
In an article published this month in Annals of Internal Medicine, Christine Sinsky, et al. describe the results of their study on ‘Allocation of Physician Time in Ambulatory Practice’. They found that physicians spend just a little more than one quarter of their day with patients and almost half of their day doing desk work, which includes working on electronic health records. According to this study, a physician spends a significant amount of time doing office work even while in the exam room with the patient. Of course, all of this leads not only to patient dissatisfaction, but physician burnout as well. With major changes in health care looming on the horizon, this would be a good time to reassess how health care is delivered, including how doctors and patients interact.