Which specialties spend the most time in EHR?
Facts at your Fingertips
By Emily Margosian, Assistant Editor, January 1, 2025
The introduction of electronic health records (EHR) has radically changed the nature of care delivery, occupying much of physicians’ scheduled (and unscheduled) in-office time. Across all specialties, physicians spent a mean of 5.8 hours per eight patient-care scheduled hours (PSH) actively working in the EHR, according to a 2024 study published in Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The cross-sectional study measured active EHR time using de-identified data from over 200,000 U.S. physicians at 396 organizations from November 2021 through April 2022.
The study categorized physician active EHR time into four primary functions: documentation, chart review, orders, and inbox. Physicians spent the most time in documentation with 2.3 hours per eight PSH. Among specialties, infectious disease physicians had the highest EHR time at 8.4 hours per eight PSH, while anesthesiology had the lowest at 2.5 hours per eight PSH. For a more detailed breakdown of total EHR time by specialty, see the graphic below.
