Insights on Residency Training

Kashif Shaikh, MD, is the 2016-17 Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.

Questions for young physicians:

Do you remember and recall the series of events that inspired you to become a healthcare provider? Are you satisfied with the field of medicine? Have you ever thought about your perceptions of healthcare before and after becoming a physician? Have you ever been a patient yourself? What attributes in our healthcare system do you wish didn’t exist or need to change?

After finishing my rounds in the ICU, I was speaking to one of our charge nurses. We were discussing the advent of electronic health records and charting and its effects on patient satisfaction. She has been a nurse at our hospital for more than 25 years. Her thoughts: She was able to chart effectively and efficiently before the advent of EMRs, and she was also able to spend considerable amount of time at the bedside speaking with patients. But now, she must meet the excessive demands of EMR charting, which are strictly enforced. This has led to a decreased amount of time spent at the bedside with patients.

Patient satisfaction scores and charting are key determinants in hospital reimbursement these days. Insurance companies are the main driver in the relationship between adequate charting and hospital reimbursement. But the required “adequate charting” affects patient satisfaction scores in inadvertent ways: A frequent complaint that we hear from our patients is that the providers don’t spend enough time talking to them at the bedside!

Papyrus text: fragment of Hippocratic oath. Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images (http://wellcomeimages.org). Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only license CC BY 4.0.

Here is he modern Hippocratic oath, to refresh our memories:

“I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.”

I had another conversation, similar to the one I had with our nurse, with one of our senior vascular surgeons. He has been a surgeon for more than 30 years. He mentioned how he spends hours working on his daily progress notes on the electronic health record. We also discuss how much time is spent on charting in the U.S. compared with other countries. For example, in the U.K., charting is done specifically to document pertinent patient information, for the sole purpose of patient care, rather than to justify requirements of insurance companies for billing purposes.

Sadly, today, most providers at the hospital are busy charting and documenting patient care in front of computer screens. Providers go to great lengths to meet requirements for healthcare reimbursement, and most of them are under time constraints to complete their paperwork. They also put in orders  electronically. These tasks directly affects the amount of time spent at the bedside talking to the patients. The components in the history & physical and progress notes mandated by the insurance companies require a substantial effort, and some of those requirements have no bearing on patient care.

By Jerry Berger [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I agree that EMRs are a more cost-effective and efficient way to track patient care than is paper charting. It is also an effective way to put in orders. But a universal EMR would save tremendous resources. But we need to define an effective universal EMR system for documentation and charting that targets patient safety, quality, and continuity of care. Those functions would allow us to do what healthcare providers need to do: Spend time at the bedside talking to our patients and their families (read: increase patient satisfaction). It would also foster good rapport between healthcare teams and patients.

Foto de la Biblioteca Vaticana scan from book. User: Rmrfstar [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Clinic Painter [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I hope as the time goes by, we see some positive changes in more effective utilization of EMR. Should we allow insurance companies and legislation to define healthcare practice?

I would like to end this article on the last paragraph of the Hippocratic Oath.

“If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

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