108 - Burning the Midnight Oil, or Just Burning Out: How Physician EMR Work Habits Impact Patient Response Time

Thursday, February 22, 2024

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT

Presenting Author(s)

TB

Timothy Bullock, II, BS

Medical Student
University Of Illinois College of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Co-Author(s)

DC

Daniel Corbier de Lara, BS

Medical Student
University of Illinois College of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois, United States
SC

Sara Cooper, BA

Medical Student
University of Illinois College of Medicine - Chicago
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Corresponding Author(s)

JR

Jonathan Radosta, MD

Chief Medical Officer at UI Health, Assistant Dean for Clinical Affairs
UI Health
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Objectives: To explore the relationship between the time worked outside of scheduled hours and turnaround time for returning patient calls.

Design:

Design: Retrospective cohort study

Participants: 53 attendings from the cardiology, endocrinology and adult internal medicine departments, Data from Sep 2020 to Sep 2022

Interventions: N/A

Outcome measures: Patient calls turnaround time

Results: Using R Studio, we ran a multivariate linear regression with the offset value being the number of calls received. "Time Outside Scheduled" showed a negative association with the turnaround time for calls, suggesting that more time spent outside the scheduled hours was associated with shorter call turnaround time. For every increased minute of time outside scheduled hours, turnaround time decreased by 42.01 min +/- 13.34 (p = 0.00172). The average turnaround time for participants was 84.48 hours and our predetermined reasonable turnaround time was 48 hours. On average, physicians would need to work between 40 and 76 minutes (average 52 minutes) outside scheduled hours to reach a turnaround time for calls within 48 hours.

Conclusions: These insights can contribute to the understanding of the factors affecting the efficiency of call handling in the EPIC system. Excessive workload that goes beyond scheduled time has been linked to physician burnout numerous times. Our study suggests that the current work-hours model is unsustainable given that in order to have reasonable turnaround time for patient calls, physicians are expected to put in increased time outside their schedule.