Photo Credit: Jacob Wackerhausen

An appropriate amount of time spent on EHRs at home and efficiency of the primary care team are associated with lower odds of burnout among US physicians.

An appropriate amount of time spent on EHRs at home and the efficiency of the primary care team are associated with lower odds of burnout among family physicians in the US, according to a study published online in JAMA Network Open.

“EHRs are a key contributor to burnout, which affects nearly two-thirds of all physicians and half of family physicians,” wrote Lisa S. Rotenstein, MD, MBA, MSc, of the University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, and colleagues. “The COVID-19 pandemic has created a variety of new pressures for all physicians, including an increased volume of EHR-based work and pandemic-related staffing pressures. Across the physician workforce, this has resulted in burnout.”

Researchers investigated links between family physicians’ perceptions of team structure and EHR experiences with burnout to identify modifiable factors. The study included 10,315 physicians who answered a subset of questions regarding burnout on the American Board of Family Medicine’s Continuous Certification Questionnaire between 2017 and 2023.

The study found a substantial prevalence of burnout over time. The proportion of family physicians reporting burnout ranged from 37.9% in 2017 to 40.4% in 2023, with a peak of 42.8% in 2022. Meanwhile, the prevalence of perceived team efficiency decreased from 65.8% in 2017 to 61.8% in 2023.

Home EHR time categorized as “appropriate” (minimal/none, modest, or a satisfactory amount of time) increased over the study period, with 53.1% of physicians reporting this outcome in 2017 compared with 58.5% in 2023. Researchers noted that high self-reported EHR proficiency remained stable, ranging from 65.2% in 2017 to 68.9% in 2023.

According to the study, appropriate home EHR time and high team efficiency were associated with reduced odds of burnout. Appropriate home EHR use was linked with 0.58 times the odds of burnout, and high team efficiency was linked with 0.61 times the odds of burnout.

Further analysis found that physician collaboration with a registered nurse was associated with 1.35 times the odds of high team efficiency, and physician collaboration with a physician assistant was linked with 1.13 times the odds of appropriate EHR time.

“These findings suggest that clinical leaders and policymakers should focus on optimizing primary care team support and family physicians’ EHR experiences to enhance the sustainability of primary care practice,” the authors advised.