Do doctors spend too much time on computers?

For every hour that some doctors devote to direct patient care they may spend about five hours on other tasks, often because they're tied up with computer work, a Swiss study suggests. The results are based on observations of just 36 doctors-in-training at one hospital in Switzerland. But research dating back more than half a century has documented physicians dedicating a similar amount of their workdays to direct patient care, Dr Nathalie Wenger, lead author of the current study, said. "It has not really changed in 50 years," Dr Wenger, a researcher at the University Hospital of Lausanne, said. During the study period, the doctors spent an average of 1.7 hours per shift with patients, 5.2 hours using computers and 13 minutes doing both, Dr Wenger and colleagues report. Patient care might not necessarily be better if doctors had less screen time, but cutting back could still have some advantages, Wenger said. "It will clearly improve satisfaction of physicians, reduce their stress and improve medical education by freeing up time for that," Dr Wenger said. For the current study, Dr Wenger and colleagues observed medical residents for a total of about 698 hours. Teams of...

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