Physician documentation workflow preferences and perceptions

Abstract Increased documentation time worsens documentation burden and is associated with physician burnout. It is hypothesized that documenting during encounters, with the patient, reduces documentation time and thus burden. No studies examine current physician practices and perceptions on documenting during versus after encounters, or the impact this has on efficiency. This study aims to fill in these gaps to elucidate optimal and efficient documentation practices. 100 outpatient internal medicine physicians were surveyed via Redcap, to assess current physician documentation preferences and perceptions of the time spent with patients and the time completing documentation. Of 39 physicians responding, most (76.9%) document solely after the encounter, citing concern for patient satisfaction as a reason to avoid documenting in the encounter. The remaining 23.1% report that documenting during the encounter increases their efficiency. Interestingly both physician groups utilized the same amount of time to complete documentation after the patient encounter. This finding suggests that choice of documentation workflow may be individualized. While documenting during encounters may offer efficiency to some physicians on an individual level, there may not be an optimal workflow applicable to all physicians.