Nearly 75% Of Health Workers Say Documentation Impedes Patient Care: Survey

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Dive Brief:

• Nearly three-quarters of healthcare professionals say the time or effort needed to complete clinical documentation hampers patient care, according to a survey published this week by the American Medical Informatics Association.
• Documentation tasks follow healthcare workers home too. More than 77% of respondents reported finishing work later than desired or working after hours due to excessive documentation.
• The survey comes as a number of technology companies are touting generative artificial intelligence tools that aim to cut down the amount of work needed to document care in medical records.

Dive Insight: 

Documentation burden is a long-term problem in the healthcare industry. Clinicians say they spend hours on note-taking and other administrative tasks in electronic health records — sometimes after work hours — contributing to burnout and siphoning time away from direct patient care. 

The latest survey by the AMIA, which surveyed more than 1,200 healthcare workers across the country, found many clinicians still report spending excessive time and effort recording patient care.

Clinicians also noted EHR usability problems, another long-reported challenge in the sector. More than 44% disagreed that it was easy to document patient care in the EHR and greater than 66% of respondents said they had not seen a recent decrease in the time or effort needed to complete documentation tasks.

The survey comes as the healthcare sector has shown increased interest in generative AI note-taking products, which technology companies say will alleviate documentation burden and burnout.

Companies like Oracle, Amazon, NextGen Healthcare, Google and Microsoft-owned Nuance Communications have developed tools that listen to conversations between clinicians and patients and draft clinical notes. HCA Healthcare, one of the largest hospital chains in the country, recently said it would roll out its Augmedix AI scribe to more emergency departments.

Other healthcare organizations say they’re interested in implementing generative AI products soon. A survey published late last year by Klas Research found more than half of organizations are looking to put the tools in place within the next year, and a number of executives with a strategy said they’d use it for documentation at their companies.

But there are still concerns about generative AI products, with leaders citing worries about accuracy and reliability. Other experts have argued a too-rapid deployment could replicate biases and widen health inequities.