Physician use of a computerized medical record system during the patient encounter: a descriptive study.

The computerized medical record program, CLINIC, specifically designed at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to be used on-line in a primary care clinic during a patient encounter by healthcare professionals, has been in use for over 6 years in two community clinics. In order to analyse the effectiveness and use of CLINIC, four physicians were video recorded during working sessions before and after the introduction of CLINIC. While using CLINIC did not change the total mean encounter time, the lengths of the encounter components and record use did change. The physicians' work style changed from a 'conversational pattern' (continuous data recording) to a 'blocked pattern' (data entry at intervals).