Doctors spend an average of about 16 minutes in every patient’s e-health record to review charts, document diagnoses and treatment plans and to order tests, a US study finds.

The researchers examined approximately 100 million patient encounters with about 155,000 doctors from all specialties, including GPs, from 417 community-based health systems.

They collected data on every keystroke, mouse click and second of time spent on various tasks in e-health records programs throughout 2018.

The amount of time that providers spent using e-health records to support the care delivery process was a concern for the healthcare system, not only for cost related to patient care, but also because of doctor burnout and job dissatisfaction, the researchers noted in the Annals of Internal Medicine.