According to a recent retrospective study from the Brigham and Women’s Department of Medicine, the time spent working on electronic health records (EHR) differs between male and female physicians in ambulatory services.
While previous research focused on gender-based EHR disparities among primary care physicians (PCPs), this analysis of 318 physicians discovered that PCPs accounted for approximately 54 percent of the total, with the remainder being medical and surgical specialists.
According to the findings, female physicians spent an average of 5.81 hours per day on the EHR, whereas male physicians spent an average of 5.23 hours per day on the EHR, according to the findings. Both male and female physicians were found to spend time on the EHR outside of work.
However, female physicians spent 0.91 hours outside of work on the EHR, compared to 0.75 hours for their male counterparts. Finally, female physicians spent an average of 2.03 hours on clinical documentation, compared to 1.67 hours for male physicians.
“Despite female physicians caring for significantly fewer patients on average, these discrepancies persisted after accounting for hours worked, physician specialty, and other variables,” stated Lisa Rotenstein,
MD, MBA, of Brigham and Women’s Department of Medicine. “Our findings point to a possible reason for the gender discrepancy in burnout, which has ramifications for physician retention and mental health in the workplace.
They believe that legislative changes, procedures, and technology that lessen the documentation burden, including scribes, team documentation, and artificial intelligence-powered solutions, may assist women physicians. “