63% of doctors think electronic health records make them less efficient

More than half of doctors in the US say they feel the effects of burnout at work. According to a study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, the increasing digitisation of medicine could be a major factor behind it. In common with everyone else, doctors are spending increasing amounts of time in front of screens. Health records and pharmacy orders, for example are now maintained electronically in a bid to streamline procedures. But of the 6,560 doctors surveyed by the Mayo Clinic who use electronic health records (EHRs), 44% said they were unhappy with them and nearly 63% thought that EHRs made their jobs less efficient. Almost half said they felt they spent too much time on clerical tasks. The study's authors said doctors may also resent digital work for replacing some of the time spent with patients.

Of all professionals in the U.S., doctors experience some of the highest rates of burnout: the feeling of being so emotionally exhausted from work that you start to feel indifferent about those you’re serving. More than half of doctors feel this way, recent research shows.

If that sounds like a bad thing for people whose job it is to heal others, it is. (Check out TIME’s in-depth investigation into doctor stress for more.) Studies have linked burnout to a rise in unprofessional behavior, a drop in patient satisfaction and a greater chance that a doctor will make a major medical error.

There’s no one cause for doctor burnout, but a new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings has found a major one: the increasingly electronic nature of medicine. The digital parts of doctoring, like maintaining electronic health records, were linked to physician burnout.

Like many of us, doctors are spending more and more time in front of their screens. Health records are now maintained electronically and doctors submit medication orders to pharmacies by computer—both strategies meant to streamline doctors’ visits, reduce errors and improve patient care.

But digitization affects doctors too—and not, it seems, for the better. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic looked at several months of 2014 survey data from 6,560 U.S. physicians measuring features of work life, including burnout and electronic use. Even after controlling for factors like age, sex, specialty and the number of hours doctors work per week, the researchers found a strong link between burnout and time spent doing digital work. Of the many physicians who used electronic health records, 44% were dissatisfied with them and nearly 63% of doctors believed that EHRs made their jobs less efficient. Nearly half of doctors said that they spent an unreasonable amount of time on clerical tasks related to patient care.

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Older doctors hated the electronic aspects of their jobs more than young physicians, possibly because they had to adjust to new technology that comes more easily to younger professionals. But the dissatisfaction with electronic busy work cut across generations. When specialty was considered, urologists, family medicine doctors, ear, nose and throat doctors and neurologists were the least satisfied with clerical work.

Just as disturbing, doctors were split on whether or not electronic health records actually improved patient care; 41% believed that they did not.

Doctors may loathe the electronic parts of their jobs because of more information overload, interruptions and distractions. But there might be a deeper reason doctors hate digital busy work: it eats up time they would otherwise spend with their patients, which is where a large number of physicians derive professional pleasure. “The introduction of computers into the examination room has the potential to shift physicians’ focus away from the patient and the human interaction,” the study authors write, “which is a source of meaning for physicians.”

Write to Mandy Oaklander at mandy.oaklander@time.com.