The impact of electronic medical record implementation on the outpatient volumes of a midsize academic center.

Abstract

Despite the proposed clinical advantages of electronic medical records (EMRs), many questions remain regarding how EMRs may limit the number of patients a provider can see on a day-to-day basis. In this study, we measured the impact of EMR implementation on outpatient volumes in the setting of a midsize academic medical center (AMC) in the southeast. The AMC outpatient visit volumes of two 12-month periods, one before and one after the EMR implementation, were collected. The mean monthly outpatient visits before and after EMR implementation were compared using the 2-tailed Student t test without assumption for equal variance. We also normalized the total annual visits to the number of full-time equivalent physicians. Power calculation was performed to measure type II error whenever P value was greater than 0.05. There was an 8.37% increase in total outpatient visits after EMR implementation, with the monthly number of patients seen increasing from a mean (SD) of 25,763.75 (1673.96) to 27,919.92 (2229.07) (P = 0.018). However, this increase disappears when normalized to full-time equivalent. After conducting multiple subunit analyses of a multiphysician primary care clinic (Family Medicine), specialty clinic (Plastic Surgery), and single-physician specialty clinic (Pediatric Plastic Surgery), we also did not find a statistically significant difference in outpatient clinic volumes after EMR implementation. Despite the burdensome time requirements many physicians subjectively attribute to EMRs, this study shows that the EMR has not really caused a statistically significant decrease in outpatient volumes in the setting of a midsize AMC.