Association of Electronic Health Record Use With Physician Fatigue and Efficiency

Abstract

Importance: The use of electronic health records (EHRs) is directly associated with physician burnout. An underlying factor associated with burnout may be EHR-related fatigue owing to insufficient user-centered interface design and suboptimal usability.

Objective: To examine the association between EHR use and fatigue, as measured by pupillometry, and efficiency, as measured by mouse clicks, time, and number of EHR screens, among intensive care unit (ICU) physicians completing a simulation activity in a prominent EHR.

Design, setting, and participants: A cross-sectional, simulation-based EHR usability assessment of a leading EHR system was conducted from March 20 to April 5, 2018, among 25 ICU physicians and physician trainees at a southeastern US academic medical center. Participants completed 4 simulation patient cases in the EHR that involved information retrieval and task execution while wearing eye-tracking glasses. Fatigue was quantified through continuous eye pupil data; EHR efficiency was characterized through task completion time, mouse clicks, and EHR screen visits. Data were analyzed from June 1, 2018, to August 31, 2019.

Main outcomes and measures: Primary outcomes were physician fatigue, measured by pupillometry (with lower scores indicating greater fatigue), and EHR efficiency, measured by task completion times, number of mouse clicks, and number of screens visited during EHR simulation.

Results: The 25 ICU physicians (13 women; mean [SD] age, 32.1 [6.1] years) who completed a simulation exercise involving 4 patient cases (mean [SD] completion time, 34:43 [11:41] minutes) recorded a total of 14 hours and 27 minutes of EHR activity. All physician participants experienced physiological fatigue at least once during the exercise, and 20 of 25 participants (80%) experienced physiological fatigue within the first 22 minutes of EHR use. Physicians who experienced EHR-related fatigue in 1 patient case were less efficient in the subsequent patient case, as demonstrated by longer task completion times (r = -0.521; P = .007), higher numbers of mouse clicks (r = -0.562; P = .003), and more EHR screen visits (r = -0.486; P = .01).

Conclusions and relevance: This study reports high rates of fatigue among ICU physicians during short periods of EHR simulation, which were negatively associated with EHR efficiency and included a carryover association across patient cases. More research is needed to investigate the underlying causes of EHR-associated fatigue, to support user-centered EHR design, and to inform safe EHR use policies and guidelines.

Figure 1.. Percentage of Participants (N = 25) Experiencing Fatigue by Question

See eTable 1 in the Supplement for description of tasks and questions.

Figure 2.. Cumulative Percentage of Users Experiencing Fatigue for the First and Second Instance During Electronic Health Record Simulation (N = 25)

Figure 3.. Distribution of Physician Fatigue Scores During Electronic Health Record Activity by Sex and Role

A, Case of a 44-year-old woman with multiorgan failure. B, Case of a 60-year-old woman with respiratory failure. C, Case of a 25-year-old man with sepsis. D, Case of a 56-year-old man with volume overload. Lower fatigue scores indicate greater fatigue. The top and bottom bars indicate the first and third quartile, respectively; the diamond indicates the mean; the horizontal line in the bars indicate the median; and vertical lines indicate minimum and maximum values.

Figure 4.. Association Between Fatigue Score in 1 Case and Electronic Health Record (EHR) Efficiency in the Subsequent Case

A, Fatigue score in case 3 and efficiency (number of mouse clicks) in case 4. B, Fatigue score in case 3 and efficiency (number of EHR screens viewed) in case 4.