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Background Increased workload, including workload related to electronic health record (EHR) documentation, is reported as a main contributor to nurse burnout and adversely affects patient safety and nurse satisfaction. Traditional methods for workload analysis are either administrative measures (such as the nurse-patient ratio) that do not represent actual nursing care or are subjective and limited to snapshots of care (eg, time-motion studies). Observing care and testing workflow changes in real time can be obstructive to clinical care. An examination of EHR interactions using EHR audit logs could provide a scalable, unobtrusive way to quantify the nursing workload, at least to the extent that nursing work is represented in EHR documentation. EHR audit logs are extremely complex; however, simple analytical methods cannot discover complex temporal patterns, requiring use of state-of-the-art temporal data-mining approaches. To effectively use these approaches, it is necessary to structure the raw audit logs into a consistent and scalable logical data model that can be consumed by machine learning (ML) algorithms. Objective We aimed to conceptualize a logical data model for nurse-EHR interactions that would support the future development of temporal ML models based on EHR audit log data. Methods We conducted a preliminary review of EHR audit logs to understand the types of nursing-specific data captured. Using concepts derived from the literature and our previous experience studying temporal patterns in biomedical data, we formulated a logical data model that can describe nurse-EHR interactions, the nurse-intrinsic and situational characteristics that may influence those interactions, and outcomes of relevance to the nursing workload in a scalable and extensible manner. Results We describe the data structure and concepts from EHR audit log data associated with nursing workload as a logical data model named RNteract. We conceptually demonstrate how using this logical data model could support temporal unsupervised ML and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) methods for predictive modeling. Conclusions The RNteract logical data model appears capable of supporting a variety of AI-based systems and should be generalizable to any type of EHR system or health care setting. Quantitatively identifying and analyzing temporal patterns of nurse-EHR interactions is foundational for developing interventions that support the nursing documentation workload and address nurse burnout.
Tiase et al. (Mon,) studied this question.