While patient care should be the primary task of a clinician, studies indicate that for every hour spent on direct patient care, physicians devote nearly two hours to electronic health record (EHR) management and desk work during the clinic day.¹ The professional in-basket has become inundated with tasks ranging from prescription refills to test-result notifications to patient messages, all requiring timely responses. When physicians don't have enough time to tackle the in-basket during the workday, it encroaches on their personal time outside of clinic hours, becoming at-home work colloquially referred to as “pajama time.”

Physicians with four to five days of scheduled appointments per week spend an average of 22 minutes on this “work after work” on scheduled days and 2.8 hours on unscheduled days.² While EHRs were intended to improve physician efficiency, they have instead allowed work to invade home life more than ever, contributing to fatigue and burnout. One study indicated that most physicians experience fatigue within 22 minutes of engaging with the EHR.³ Physicians who spend more time on the EHR after hours and those whose in-baskets exceed 114 messages per day are more likely to experience emotional exhaustion.^4,5 Many have resigned themselves to working nights and weekends to keep up with their in-basket, but it doesn't have to be this way.