A survey was conducted by HIMSS Analytics, which is associated with HIMSS, the parent company of Healthcare Finance News and Vocera, an IT company that offers a clinical communications platform.
Physicians and nurses report a high level of stress associated with interruptions from texts, alerts, alarms, pages and phone calls, all having to do with work but disruptive to patient care.
The research of 150 clinical and IT professionals, in fact, shows that 82 percent feel these interruptions contribute to stress and burnout.
Thirty-five percent of clinicians said these interruptions occur 6-10 times per hour while another 37 percent said they received messages 2-5 times in an hour.
Two-thirds of respondents believe technological interruptions should be reviewed at least quarterly, but that’s not happening.
The research follows an American Medical Association report that found for every hour physicians spend with patients, they spend two hours on EHR and other work.
Nurses spend 21 percent of their 12-hour shift interacting with the EHR and 33 percent total with technology, according to an UPMC study cited by the researchers.