Clinical Informatics by the Numbers: Healthcare Capacity

When providers finish seeing patients but still have charts to close, an open position may explain only part of the workload. Documentation requirements, handoffs, and role design also determine how much clinical work your practice can complete.

Revascent brings these pressures together in Clinical Informatics by the Numbers. The research covers workforce supply, documentation burden, support options, and retention. Use the findings to frame a capacity assessment, then examine your own workflows before choosing an intervention.

The accompanying Clinical Informatics Playbook extends that analysis through the Right Work Framework: work, workflow, workforce, technology, and outcomes. The framework helps you distinguish a role that needs additional staffing from work that could be redistributed or redesigned.

View Clinical Informatics by the Numbers infographic (PDF).

Key Takeaways: Clinical Informatics and Healthcare Capacity

• National workforce projections establish the scale of staffing pressure, but your practice needs a workflow-level diagnosis before choosing an intervention.
• Documentation consumes clinical capacity and can displace other important work, including reviewing patient records from outside organizations during the day.
• AI-enabled documentation research reports potential time savings, with human review and local measurement remaining essential parts of responsible implementation.
• Staff turnover adds another capacity constraint, so evaluate workload distribution alongside recruitment, compensation, training, and opportunities for professional development.
• Revascent’s Right Work Framework connects work, workflow, workforce, technology, and outcomes to help you assess capacity before committing to additional headcount.

Healthcare Staffing Shortages Put Practice Capacity Under Pressure

Workforce supply and labor costs constrain the options available to your practice. HRSA’s December 2025 workforce report projects a shortage of 141,160 full-time-equivalent U.S. physicians across specialties by 2038. That national projection does not predict an individual practice’s staffing needs.

In an October 2024 MGMA Stat poll, 53% of responding medical group leaders identified finding candidates as their top staffing challenge. Compensation and benefits followed at 29%, with retention at 16%.

A July 2025 MGMA cost poll found that 65% of respondents identified labor as the area with the largest percentage cost increase. For your practice, the next question is where existing staff time is going before a new position is approved.

How Does Documentation Burden Reduce Clinical Capacity?

Documentation burden reduces capacity when charting competes with other work requiring a physician’s attention. A 2016 time-and-motion study by Sinsky and colleagues found nearly two hours of EHR and desk work for every hour of direct patient care. Treat that finding as a historical benchmark, not a current measurement of every practice.

A November 2024 Health Affairs study examined another consequence: reviewing records from outside organizations. Its abstract reports that each additional hour spent documenting resulted in a 7.1 percent reduction in the proportion of patients whose outside records were viewed by the primary care physician that day.

The AMA’s 2025 data, reported in 2026, found at least one burnout symptom among 41.9% of physicians. Measure documentation time, note closure, and after-hours charting within your practice rather than assuming national findings describe your providers’ experience.

Documentation Support Requires Measurement and Human Review

Documentation support should be evaluated against both time savings and note quality. A September 2025 npj Digital Medicine commentary summarizes research suggesting 20% to 30% reductions in documentation time with AI scribes. It also describes errors, omissions, and variation in evaluation methods; a reported error range is not a universal accuracy guarantee.

In a separate 2025 NEJM Catalyst analysis, The Permanente Medical Group reported estimated documentation savings exceeding 15,700 hours for users compared with nonusers over a year of use. The evaluation reflects a large integrated health system, not a promised result for an independent practice.

Before a pilot, specify who reviews AI-assisted notes, how discrepancies are corrected, and how documentation quality will be assessed. Track time saved alongside review workload, completion time, and provider experience. A faster draft is useful only within a defined documentation workflow.

Staff Retention Belongs in Your Capacity Assessment

Staff retention affects how much work your existing team can sustain. In a May 2026 MGMA Stat poll, 28% of responding medical group leaders reported higher turnover than in 2025. The accompanying discussion identifies pressure in medical assistant, clinical support, and front-desk roles.

Review which responsibilities shift when a position is vacant, how new staff are trained, and where experienced employees repeatedly absorb extra work. Those observations help you separate recruitment needs from workload design problems.

The infographic also includes a hospital RN-turnover cost benchmark. Hospital-level costs provide context, but they should not be applied directly to an independent practice’s budget or used as an estimate of your own turnover costs.

Apply the Right Work Framework Before Adding Headcount

The Right Work Framework organizes your capacity assessment into five questions. Revascent’s Clinical Informatics Playbook uses that sequence to examine the work and its flow before deciding who should perform it.

1. Work: Identify the tasks that need to happen and which require a licensed provider.
2. Workflow: Locate duplicate entry, repeated handoffs, and unnecessary approvals.
3. Workforce: Match each responsibility to the appropriate role and training.
4. Technology: Identify tasks that could benefit from technology, with review responsibilities defined.
5. Outcomes: Set the measures that will determine whether the change helped.

Start with one constrained workflow. Compare hiring, delegation, workflow redesign, technology, and specialized support against that diagnosis. Establish a baseline before making a change, then assess documentation time, after-hours work, throughput, and staff experience over a consistent comparison window.

Explore the Clinical Informatics Playbook

The Clinical Informatics Playbook develops the framework into a practical assessment of staffing, documentation, and support options. Revascent’s Clinical Informatics services support provider efficiency through EHR workflows and documentation support. The appropriate intervention depends on where your assessment identifies lost capacity.

Use the playbook to work through one operational constraint and define the evidence you need before expanding an intervention. If you would like help evaluating that constraint, talk with Revascent about your practice’s workflow and documentation priorities.

FAQs About Clinical Informatics and Practice Capacity

Does a capacity problem always require another hire?

No. A capacity assessment may identify a need for dedicated staffing, but it may also reveal duplicate work, role mismatches, or documentation friction. Revascent’s Right Work Framework helps you compare those explanations before choosing hiring, delegation, workflow redesign, technology, or specialized support.

What should a practice measure during a documentation pilot?

Measure documentation time, time to note closure, after-hours charting, review workload, and documentation quality against a baseline. Revascent’s Clinical Informatics Playbook also recommends tracking throughput and provider or staff satisfaction so your assessment captures the operational effects of a change.

How does Revascent use the term Clinical Informatics?

Revascent uses Clinical Informatics for support connecting clinical workflows, EHR use, documentation, and staffing needs. The pillar guide describes in-person scribes, AI-enabled virtual scribes with human oversight, and recruiting support. This service terminology differs from the broader healthcare discipline of clinical informatics.