ArticleJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA2021
Frequent but fragmented: use of note templates to document outpatient visits at an academic health center.
Article in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Electronic Health Record Nudges and Health Care Quality and Outcomes in Primary Care: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2024Pooled it
- Understanding Primary Care Physicians' Comprehension of Eye Care Notes to Improve Diabetes Care Coordination.Research square · 2026Article
- Implementation outcomes of AI documentation support in routine clinical practice: A non-randomized controlled trial.PLOS digital health · 2026Article
- A fiscally sound, evidenced-based solution to conquering the complexity of physician billing guidelines: A physician-centric note template.Health information management : journal of the Health Information Management Association of Australia · 2025Article
- Usability Challenges in Electronic Health Records: Impact on Documentation Burden and Clinical Workflow: A Scoping Review.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2025Article
- Optimizing Resident Charge Capture with Disappearing Help Text in Note Templates.Applied clinical informatics · 2025Article
- Ambient artificial intelligence scribes: physician burnout and perspectives on usability and documentation burden.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2025Article
- Ambient artificial intelligence scribes: utilization and impact on documentation time.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2025Article
- Effect of an Electronic Health Record-Based Intervention on Documentation Practices.Applied clinical informatics · 2024Article
- Standardization of Emergency Department Clinical Note Templates: A Retrospective Analysis across an Integrated Health System.Applied clinical informatics · 2024Article
- The role of organizations in shaping physician use of electronic health records.Health services research · 2024Article
- Utilization and efficacy of DotPhrases in the electronic medical record for improving physician documentation.Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) · 2024Review
- Changes in Primary Care Quality Associated With Implementation of the Veterans Health Administration Preventive Health Inventory.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- I had not time to make it shorter: an exploratory analysis of how physicians reduce note length and time in notes.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2023Article
- Using event logs to observe interactions with electronic health records: an updated scoping review shows increasing use of vendor-derived measures.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Recent changes to billing policy have reduced documentation requirements for outpatient notes, providing an opportunity to rethink documentation workflows. While many providers use templates to write notes-whether to insert short phrases or draft entire notes-we know surprisingly little about how these templates are used in practice. In this retrospective cross-sectional study, we observed the templates that primary providers and other members of the care team used to write the provider progress note for 2.5 million outpatient visits across 52 specialties at an academic health center between 2018 and 2020. Templates were used to document 89% of visits, with a median of 2 used per visit. Only 17% of the 100 230 unique templates were ever used by more than one person and most providers had their own full-note templates. These findings suggest template use is frequent but fragmented, complicating template revision and maintenance. Reframing template use as a form of computer programming suggests ways to maintain the benefits of personalization while leveraging standardization to reduce documentation burden.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.