Research on the use of EHR is contradictory since it presents
contradicting results regarding the time spent documenting. There is research
that supports the use of electronic records as a tool to speed documentation;
and research that found that it is time consuming. The purpose of this
quantitative retrospective before-after project was to measure the impact of
using the laboratory value flowsheet within the EHR on documentation time. The
research question was: “Does the use of a
laboratory value flowsheet in the EHR impact documentation time by primary care providers (PCPs)?”
The theoretical framework utilized in this project was the Donabedian
Model. The population in this research was the two PCPs in a small primary care
clinic in the northwest of Puerto Rico. The
sample was composed of all the encounters during the months of October 2019 and
December 2019. The data was obtained through data mining and analyzed
using SPSS 27. The evaluative outcome of this
project is that there is a decrease in documentation time after implementation of the use of the laboratory value
flowsheet in the EHR. However, patients
per day increase therefore having an impact on the number of patients seen per
day/week/month. The implications for clinical practice include the use
of templates to improve workflow and documentation as well as decreasing
documentation time while also increasing the number of patients seen per day.
References
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