AMIA Task Force Tackles Clinician Documentation Burden

Three members of the Columbia Nursing community are playing key roles in an American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) effort to sharply reduce documentation burden on U.S. clinicians. 

Sarah Rossetti, PhD, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics and nursing, is chairperson of the 25x5 Initiative to Reduce Documentation and Optimize the Electronic Health Record, which is establishing strategies and approaches to shrink clinical documentation to 25% of current levels by 2025. Rossetti also co-chaired the six-week 25x5 Symposium, in early 2021, which brought together more than 300 leaders within the health care community to set the foundation for those efforts. All materials from this event, including more than 40 video presentations, are available here. 

“Health care professionals need to be able to focus on the important work of caring for patients, but their time and resources are challenged by the growing problem of clinical documentation burden,” Rossetti said. “Documentation burden is complex with numerous contributing factors and we need to move beyond describing the problem to identifying actionable recommendations that will result in solutions to benefit clinician well-being and patient care.” 

Assistant professor Kenrick Cato, PhD, was also an original member of the 25x5 steering committee, and he will now serve as an AMIA Board Liaison. 

Victoria Tiase, MS ’06, PhD, a Columbia Nursing alumnus and strategic director of digital health in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Utah, has been elected as a task force member leading the Policy/Advocacy Workstream. 

You can follow the ongoing efforts of the 25x5 Initiative on its AMIA homepage.