How much time do emergency department physicians spend on medication-related tasks? A time- and-motion study

BMC Emergency Medicine

Table 5 Time and proportion of time spent on medication reconciliation (MedRec) tasks

Table	Junior internists Time (h:min:s)	Junior surgical physicians Time (h:min:s)	All physicians Time (h:min:s)
Active task time^a	109:20:40	112:26:24	337:55:40
Observed time^b	10:57:58	06:21:32	20:34:04
% time^a	10.0	5.7	6.1
Median time/session	00:10:41	00:05:05	00:04:18
Min. time/session	00:02:17	00:00:17	00:00:11
Max. time/session	00:32:05	00:23:17	00:32:43
No. sessions w/MedRec	56	57	177
No. patients in sessions w/MedRec	110	98	298

^aActive task time is total observation time excluding time for movement and standby and is used as denominator when calculating proportions in each group
^bObserved active task time spent on MedRec tasks: 1; oral communication – retrieve medication-related information, 2; read/retrieve written information; from Summary Care Record, Prescription Intermediary, medication module in electronic heath record and chart, and 3; medication-related documentation

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