• David Margolius, Jonathan Siff, Kathryn Teng, Douglas Einstadter, Douglas Gunzler, and Shari Bolen.
• From the Department of Medicine, MetroHealth System, Cleveland, OH (DM, KT, DE, SB); the Departments of Health Informatics and Emergency Medicine, MetroHealth System, Cleveland, OH (JS); and the Center for Health Care Research and Policy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (DG). DMargolius@metrohealth.org.
• J Am Board Fam Med. 2020 May 1; 33 (3): 460-462.

IntroductionThe objective of this study was to better understand the relationship between panel size, full-time status, and estimated socioeconomic status of a patient panel with types and number of primary care clinician inbox messages.MethodsThe study used data from the Epic Signal database to examine inbox volume and types of messages for 86 primary care clinicians at 19 primary care sites. We measured correlations and performed multiple regression analysis to understand the relationship between inbox volume and types of messages and 3 factors: panel size, full-time status, and estimated socioeconomic status of patient panels.ResultsThe study found positive correlation between the number of messages and panel size, full-time status, and estimated socioeconomic status of patient panels. The number of patient portal messages generated from patient panels with higher socioeconomic status accounted for the positive correlation in total inbox messages and that factor.DiscussionThese findings contribute to our understanding of primary care workload, specifically as it relates to panel size, full-time status, and patient panel socioeconomic status. Increase in clinical time or panel size needs to come with trained team members or additional time to address inbox messages.© Copyright 2020 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

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