The other day, I saw my health care provider for a routine appointment—and indeed, it seemed that I saw him, rather than the other way around. After having my vital signs measured by the medical assistant, I was led into the exam room. To my surprise, the provider (I will not divulge whether he was a physician, PA, or NP) was already there, sitting in front of his computer. He glanced up to say hello, but did not stand up, shake my hand, or maintain any level of eye contact. He did swear under his breath several times—something about his hatred of electronic medical records (EMRs)—while he asked me questions, hammering away on his laptop in time with my responses. After confirming that I was there for a prescription refill, he picked up his laptop and walked out of the room. A few minutes later, he popped back in to say, “Gee, I guess I should listen to your heart.” He placed the stethoscope on my chest over my shirt for a fraction of a second and was gone again. When I got to the pharmacy, I discovered he had called in the wrong prescription.
When Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen coined the phrase disruptive technology, I’m not sure he imagined quite this level of impact! The time focused on a computer or device, rather than on the patient, has become so disproportionate that Dr. Abraham Verghese coined the term iPatient—a result of what he calls the chart-as-surrogate-for-the-patient approach.1
While I hope my experience is not a regular occurrence in health care today, I’m well aware that the addition of e-this and e-that (computers, tablets, smartphones) at the bedside has clinicians multitasking more and more. Sure, performing more than one task at a time can be time-saving. But it can also lead to preoccupation and medical errors—at a time when medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.2
We, as clinicians and as a larger society, are fascinated by speed. We want information faster than ever: medical information, lab results, etc. Our devices, stimulating and exhilarating as they are, have created a new society. Tell me you have not noticed the zombie-like motions of our colleagues walking in an electronic trance, pecking away at their preferred device! (OK, I am guilty of this, as well.)
Furthermore—and counterintuitively—efficiency in the clinic has been decimated by technology. In the “old days,” we could see patients roughly every 15 minutes, and many were double-booked. No problem; we merely dictated a note while walking from room to room, turned in our tapes at the end of the day, and signed a stack of notes two days later. Now, documentation alone takes at least 15 minutes, because it’s not just the note; it’s also the charges and the visit summary that is supposed to (but never does) go home with the patient.
So, if you want to see patients, if you want to generate revenue, if you want to keep the corporate slave drivers at bay, you either skimp on patient care or you document on your own time. One colleague lamented to me that, by implementing cost-saving measures to eliminate medical transcription ($2-$3/h outsourced to India), administrators and EMRs have reduced clinicians to the role of “Doc-retary.”
The diversion of attention, coupled with pressure to “perform,” is at the heart of the problem. Lately, every clinician I have spoken to seems to feel burdened by an influx of demands to see more patients in abbreviated visits while maintaining detailed records and documenting everything. It is no wonder that more than 75% of respondents in a study on physician distress met the criteria for burnout.3 I worry that NPs and PAs are not far behind. In a 2018 study, more than half (55.6%) of PAs rated “spending too many hours at work” as an important contributor to stress, and about 29% had previously quit a job due to stress.4
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