A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) has revealed significant findings related to telemedicine’s impact on physician electronic health record (EHR) use. The research, “Differences in Physician Electronic Health Record Use by Telemedicine Intensity: Evidence from 2 Academic Medical Centers,” was co-authored by recent Biomedical Informatics and Data Science (BIDS) PhD graduate Seunghwan (Nigel) Kim and collaborators from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).
Conducted from March 2021 through March 2022 across two major academic medical centers—Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) and UCSF—the study analyzed data from ambulatory physicians across 11 specialties to evaluate EHR usage in the post-COVID-19 period. The findings reveal that weeks with higher telemedicine intensity were associated with increased EHR engagement and documentation time, particularly at WashU compared to UCSF. The results also showed differences in specific EHR-based tasks, such as ordering and clinical communication, indicating a shift in workload due to telemedicine intensity.
These revelations underscore the necessity for optimized EHR tools and workflows to support sustainable virtual care without amplifying physician burden. They emphasize the context-specific impact of telemedicine and provide critical insights into tailoring health informatics to enhance physician efficiency and patient care.
Congratulations to all authors—Seunghwan Kim, PhD; Robert Thombley, BS; Elise Eiden, MS; Sunny Lou, MD, PhD; Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD; Thomas Kannampallil, PhD; and A Jay Holmgren, PhD, MHI—on this significant publication.