Electronic Health Record Usage Among Surgeons—The Gender Gap

The introduction of the electronic health record (EHR) was hailed as an opportunity to improve the quality of care by providing physicians and other clinicians with up-to-date patient information, increase patient engagement and access, reduce medical errors, and increase both cost savings and efficiency, all of which would lead to improved shared decision-making and more effective medical care. As the EHR has become universally adopted across the US, the time physicians spend interacting with the EHR during and outside work hours is increasingly being studied as a source of burnout. Indeed, a recent cross-sectional study performed at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that despite being scheduled for 30-minute encounters, primary care physicians spend 36.3 minutes on the EHR per visit, which includes 6.2 minutes of “pajama time” (defined as 5:30 pm to 7:00 am) per visit and 7.8 minutes on the EHR inbox for each visit. Whether these findings are generalizable to surgeons remains unknown.