New research shows that, although telehealth alone does not appear to significantly add to a primary care physician’s workload, combined practices—telehealth environments and Direct integrated care – resulted in a 6% increase in time spent on documentation and EHR work.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
These are among the results of an April study by MedStar Health Research Institute and Georgetown University School of Medicine published in JAMA Network Open, focusing on how integrated care environments impact any of the PCP’s administrative duties.
The research team examined daily telehealth visit rates at five levels and analyzed different measures of PCPs’ EHR uptime over 67,894 days.
Days spent using both telehealth and in-person care correlated with increased time spent reviewing medical records, documents, and EHRs.
Days with 26% to 99% of visits via telehealth were associated with nearly 15 minutes of additional EHR time, approximately 5 minutes of additional documentation, and 5.5 minutes of additional medical record review.
However, integrated care was shown to have no impact on next-day record time, suggesting that PCPs were attempting to integrate the additional workload.
“Greater EHR time may be due to increased multitasking during telemedicine visits, as PCPs simultaneously interact with the patient and the EHR during telemedicine visits according to the ways that cannot be done directly”. “This multitasking feature may be more efficient and therefore may not be considered a ‘burden’.”
The report authors recommend that further research be conducted to more rigorously determine whether additional EHR time on mixed-modality care days is a burden on physicians.
BIGGER TREND
A recent report from the Department of Health demonstrates that telehealth improves outcomes and reduces spending, showing increased medication adherence and reduced hospitalizations and emergency room visits, but the future of regulatory flexibility remains under scrutiny.
The technology can also help providers improve health care equity and access to care, although a detailed implementation strategy will be needed to achieve those goals.
According to a peer-reviewed research report on the topic, the potential benefits also extend to telepsychiatry, especially helping to reach patients in rural areas where there is a shortage of specialists.
Care providers are looking at integrating AI with telemedicine services to improve patient care as some experts say telemedicine technology can be beneficial for providers and patients in the primary care field.
Cedars-Sinai recently expanded its AI-powered virtual healthcare platform, Cedars-Sinai Connect, to include a Spanish version that serves parents with children ages 3 to 17, provides 24/7 access to healthcare providers for urgent matters.
However, the evolution to telemedicine has not been without its pace and setbacks, as demonstrated most recently by Walmart’s decision to end its virtual care program in the face of rising operating costs and a “challenging reimbursement environment,” while Optum Care is also closing its telehealth services. telemedicine business.
ON PROFILE
“The use of telemedicine has increased significantly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and has the potential to deliver low-cost health services at a lower cost,” MedStar and Georgetown researchers wrote. ”.
“However, telemedicine also imposes new costs on clinicians. Telemedicine requires changes to the care delivery process because it rarely includes clinical support staff.” clinic but may involve the same level of patient complexity as in-person visits, which may increase the administrative and electronic health record burden on clinicians.” and increased cognitive costs when clinicians switch modalities.”
