Analyzing timestamped EHR data from more than 21 million primary care visits in 2017, researchers have ascertained average lengths of visit, scheduled visit time periods and other metrics useful to assessing care quality.
The team’s findings are presented in the January 2021 edition of Medical Care.
Hannah Neprash, PhD, of the University of Minnesota and colleagues found the average primary care exam lasted 18.0 minutes and ran over its planned duration by 1.2 minutes.
Visits with short planned allotments, 10 to 15 minutes, went over goal times more often than those with allotments of 20 to 30 minutes.
Conversely, longer appointments often wrapped up before planned stop times.
Scheduled 10-minute visits ran over by an average of five minutes, while scheduled 30-minute visits averaged less than 24 minutes.
Also of interest:
- More than two-thirds of visits deviated from the schedule for five minutes or more.
- About 38% of scheduled 10-minute visits lasted more than five minutes.
- 60% of scheduled 30-minute visits lasted less than 25 minutes.
The authors comment that their methodology for quantifying doctor-visit durations offers a workable alternative to questionnaires and surveys.
“By using timestamps recorded when information is accessed or entered, EHR data allow for potentially more objective and reliable measurement of how much time physicians spend with their patients,” Neprash and co-authors conclude.
Such reliability “may help to make appointment scheduling and other processes more efficient, optimizing use of doctors’ time,” Medical Care publisher Wolters Kluwer notes in a news release.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.