Variation in Physicians’ Electronic Health Record Documentation and Potential Patient Harm from That Variation

Background Physician-to-physician variation in electronic health record (EHR) documentation not driven by patients’ clinical status could be harmful. Objective Measure variation in completion of common clinical documentation domains. Identify perceived causes and effects of variation and strategies to mitigate negative effects. Design Sequential, explanatory, mixed methods using log data from a commercial EHR vendor and semi-structured interviews with outpatient primary care practices. Participants Quantitative: 170,332 encounters led by 809 physicians in 237 practices. Qualitative: 40 interviewees in 10 practices. Main Measures Interquartile range (IQR) of the proportion of encounters in which a physician completed documentation, for each documentation category. Multilevel linear regression measured the proportion of variation at the physician level. Key Results Five clinical documentation categories had substantial and statistically significant ( p < 0.001) variation at the physician level after accounting for state, organization, and practice levels: (1) discussing results (IQR = 50.8%, proportion of variation explained by physician level = 78.1%); (2) assessment and diagnosis (IQR = 60.4%, physician-level variation = 76.0%); (3) problem list (IQR = 73.1%, physician-level variation = 70.1%); (4) review of systems (IQR = 62.3%, physician-level variation = 67.7%); and (5) social history (IQR = 53.3%, physician-level variation = 62.2%). Drivers of variation from interviews included user preferences and EHR designs with multiple places to record similar information. Variation was perceived to create documentation inefficiencies and risk patient harm due to missed or misinterpreted information. Mitigation strategies included targeted user training during EHR implementation and practice meetings focused on documentation standardization. Conclusions Physician-to-physician variation in EHR documentation impedes effective and safe use of EHRs, but there are potential strategies to mitigate negative consequences.