Physicians complain about the time costs and other effects of electronic medical records (EMRs). [1][2]2][3] In a small survey, 4 family practice physicians reported an EMR-associated loss of 48 minutes of free time per clinic day (P < .05).We collaborated with the American College of Physicians (ACP) to revise the instrument from this study and surveyed the ACP's national sample of internists to determine the extent of this problem. Methods |The ACP invites 1% of its members, including internal medicine attending physicians and trainees (resident and fellows), into its research panel, 5 narrows the candidates by random sampling to ensure balance, and then adds nonmember internists.On December 12, 2012, the ACP mailed a 19-question survey to its panelists (900 ACP member and 102 nonmember internists at that time) who provided ambulatory care, and left it in the field for 10 days.The survey (Q11-Q12) focused on free time to get a sense of the EMR's overall effect on internist's time budget, including nonclinic time (Table 1).
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McDonald et al. (2014) studied this question.