IMPACT OF COMPUTERIZED PHYSICIAN ORDER ENTRY ON PHYSICIAN TIME

We examined the effect of computerized physician order entry on houses taff time use patterns, using time motion techniques. For both medical and surgical house officers, writing orders on the computer took abou t twice as long (p < 0.001), or 44 minutes for medical and 73 minutes for surgical house officers. Medical house officers recovered about ha lf this time because some administrative tasks--e.g. looking for chart s--were made easier. Within types of orders, sets of stereotyped order s took much less time with order entry, but one-time orders took longe r. We have since developed strategies to make it easier to enter one-t ime orders.