AI and HealthCare, Electronic Records / 01.05.2026
How AI is Improving Physician Productivity in Modern EHR Systems
[caption id="attachment_73576" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Pexels[/caption]
Doctors work long hours, but surprisingly, much of that time is not dedicated to patient care — it goes to administrative work. According to American Medical Association data from 2024, physicians work 57.8 hours per week. Of those, 27 hours go to patient care and 13 hours to indirect care. The rest is spent on admin-related tasks.
In simple words, physicians are spending almosst more time on computers than on patient care. This is the core problem every medical practice is facing today, and AI-powered tools claim to fix it.
Pexels[/caption]
Doctors work long hours, but surprisingly, much of that time is not dedicated to patient care — it goes to administrative work. According to American Medical Association data from 2024, physicians work 57.8 hours per week. Of those, 27 hours go to patient care and 13 hours to indirect care. The rest is spent on admin-related tasks.
In simple words, physicians are spending almosst more time on computers than on patient care. This is the core problem every medical practice is facing today, and AI-powered tools claim to fix it.
Care coordination failures rarely begin at the bedside. They usually start earlier, inside systems that split responsibility across departments, settings, and documentation flows. A patient moves from primary care to acute care, then to follow-up support, yet key details get delayed, softened, or lost. A discharge plan looks complete on paper, but the handoff lacks context. A medication list gets updated in one setting while another team works from an older version. The result is avoidable friction that affects outcomes, workflow, and trust.
That is why the question matters: can online ABSN education prepare nurses to work inside these fractured systems in a way that actually improves coordination?
Patient needs are getting more complex and that's starting to show in how medications are prescribed and managed. Patients are living longer, often with more than one condition at the same time and treatment plans now involve several drugs rather than just one or two. That makes medication decisions harder to manage in practice, especially when different conditions are being treated at once. It also explains why more advanced pharmacy training, such as obtaining a 
Healthcare systems in many regions are under pressure right now and it is starting to show more clearly in day-to-day care and longer-term planning. Staffing shortages are not new, but they have become harder to absorb as demand for services continues to rise. In many cases, the number of newly trained nurses has not kept pace. That gap has pushed universities and healthcare providers to look again at how people enter the profession, including newer formats such as 
Healthcare systems are under pressure and the strain is starting to show in day-to-day care as well as longer-term planning. Demand continues to rise, while staffing gaps remain difficult to close. In many settings, the number of newly trained nurses has not kept pace with need. That has pushed providers and universities to look again at how roles are structured, including newer pathways such as 
Behavioral health demand across the United States has reached a level that is forcing structural reconsideration across the healthcare workforce, with federal estimates indicating that more than 120 million Americans live in areas with insufficient mental health services. This places sustained pressure on access, continuity of care, and patient outcomes. The consequences are visible through extended wait times, higher patient acuity at intake, and growing reliance on emergency departments for psychiatric crises — together signaling a system operating beyond comfortable capacity.
Graduate nursing education sits directly within this pressure point, as psychiatric training pathways carry responsibility for expanding workforce supply, maintaining clinical depth, and preparing clinicians for increasingly complex presentations. Programs in 2026 face scrutiny tied to how effectively they prepare practitioners for real clinical demands, so curriculum design, accreditation expectations, and clinical partnerships continue to adapt in response to sustained national need.
Dr. Edward Liu[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Edward Liu, MD
Geisinger College of Health Sciences
Scranton, PA 18509
Medicalresearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Prescription drugs have high levels of uniformity that plant-based products cannot achieve. Given the liberalization of state-laws regarding medical marijuana1 over the past three-decades and increasing evidence of evidence of cannabis for conditions like chronic pain,2 we were interested in the use of the prescription formulation of delta(Δ)9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). A prior pharmacoepidemiology report found that prescription THC (dronabinol) to Medicaid patients decreased from 2016 to 2020. There were also pronounced state-level disparities in prescribing with a 130-fold difference when correcting for population between the highest and lowest states.
There was no research on this topic among Medicare patients. To address this gap, we obtained prescription numbers nationally and at a state level from 2014 to 2019 for Medicare Part D patients.
Source: IMAGE[/caption]