New Coding Guidelines Reduce Emergency Department Note Bloat But More Work Is Needed.

Study Objective: The length and redundancy of notes authored by clinicians has significantly increased, giving rise to the term "note bloat." We analyzed the impact of new coding guidelines and documentation best practices on the length of emergency department (ED) notes and the amount of time clinicians spent documenting.

Methods: In a large, multisite health care delivery organization, we retrospectively evaluated the length of all ED provider notes and the amount of time clinicians spent documenting between February 2018 and June 2023.