As doctor office visits get shorter and shorter, patients are becoming painfully aware of how important it is to make the most of those precious minutes. But that can be difficult if you can't even get your doctor to look you in the eye.
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At the heart of the problem is medicine's increasing reliance on technology. A new study by Northwestern University finds that doctors who use electronic health records in the exam room spend about a third of their visits looking at the computer screen.
"When doctors spend that much time looking at the computer, it can be difficult for patients to get their attention," said Enid Montague, first author of the study. "It's likely that the ability to listen, problem-solve and think creatively is not optimal when physicians' eyes are glued to the screen."
Northwestern scientists used video cameras to record 100 doctor-patient visits in which doctors used computers to access electronic health records. They then analyzed eye-gaze patterns and how they affected communication between doctors and patients.
"We found that physician-patient eye-gaze patterns are different during a visit in which electronic health records versus a paper-chart visit are used," Montague said. "Not only does the doctor spend less time looking at the patient, the patient also almost always looks at the computer screen, whether or not the patient can see or understand what is on the screen."
Electronic health records are here to stay, but researchers say understanding the problem can help guide the development of better systems. One option, for example, might be an interactive screen to share between physicians and patients.