COVID exacerbated the gender disparity in physician electronic health record inbox burden.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with significant changes to the delivery of ambulatory care, including a dramatic increase in patient messages to physicians. While asynchronous messaging is a valuable communication modality for patients, a greater volume of patient messages is associated with burnout and decreased well-being for physicians. Given that women physicians experienced greater electronic health record (EHR) burden and received more patient messages pre-pandemic, there is concern that COVID may have exacerbated this disparity. Using EHR audit log data of ambulatory physicians at an academic medical center, we used a difference-in-differences framework to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on patient message volume and compare differences between men and women physicians. We

SUBMITTER: Rotenstein L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10531114 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature