Hospital and health system executives are all too familiar with physician burnout, an industry-wide problem that threatens the quality and accessibility of health care. Forward-thinking executives look for strategies and techniques that can help combat burnout and improve the daily lives of their caregivers.
Healthcare Information Technology News He recently spoke with Julie Frey, director of product strategy at Wolters Kluwer Health, developer of clinical decision support tools.
Frey has over a decade of experience in corporate and product strategy. In her current role as Director of Provider Product Strategy at Wolters Kluwer, she works closely with healthcare providers to develop roadmaps for the future of the company’s market-leading solutions, including UpToDate and Lexicomp.
She discusses why she believes clinical burnout is definitely an IT concern, why now is the time for technology leaders to help reverse burnout and the importance of prioritizing tools clinicians value. It also offers some best practices for introducing change.
Q: You say clinical burnout is largely due to administrative burden and is undoubtedly an IT concern. Please explain.
a. Recent article by the AMA on physician burnout Putting the problem under the administrative burden. The sheer volume of patients, along with regulatory and payer requirements, are major contributors.
But technology also plays an important role in how many tools doctors have to use, including Electronic health records, physician decision support, telehealth platforms, productivity tools, and new digital health applications. As this list grows, clinicians are faced with a constant stream of new applications for learning, changes in doctors’ workflows and additional “clicks”.
Each change or addition may have a small impact, but the total, combined with the constant influx of new technologies, means massive changes. The final result? Cognitive Overload Doctor – “Burnout”.
This burnout affects productivity, morale, and ultimately, physician retention. Health systems need to focus on ways to empower physicians to do more of what they love — taking care of patients.
So, with the problem being at least partially driven by technology, why de-leverage IT as an area of helping clinicians achieve this? IT leadership agrees that technology must be a key component in addressing current workforce challenges, including finding ways to support higher licensed practices and increase the efficiency of the care team. If leaders can identify ways to do this with technology, it will have a lasting positive impact on clinicians and their patients.
s. You also suggest that now is the time for IT leaders to play an important role in reversing clinical burnout. Describe this role.
a. Health systems are expressing a broad commitment to elevating their IT strategy with a particular focus on digital transformation. This was already underway, but was precipitated by the pandemic.
Based on our discussions with clients, technology is now a major organizational and strategic pillar, along with areas such as clinical care and patient education. And technology leadership—whether it’s the CIO, Chief Digital Officer, or CMIO—plays an increasingly strategic role with additional budget.
But until recently, efforts to modernize and streamline clinicians’ workflows have not been high on the list of competing IT priorities, such as improving virtual care, information security, data analytics, and responding to cyber threats. With such a wide range of important and urgent issues, IT leaders have prioritized efforts to understandably streamline clinicians’ workflows.
But an effective IT workflow underlies the health system’s ability to improve all priorities that rely on technology, and deficiencies that contribute to clinical burnout have ripple effects across the organization.
The good news is that as the link between current technology use and clinical burnout becomes increasingly evident, CIOs have turned their sights to approaching physicians’ workflows, particularly through the lens of administrative burden.
In the Academy’s 2022 Priorities Survey, CIOs ranked “Developing technology-enabled solutions to reduce the administrative burden of the care team” among their top five priorities. For the year 2023, it was ranked among the top three priorities, along with implementing practices to improve information security, enhance response to cyber threats and recovery planning.
In this, we see that the prohibitive organizational cost – in terms of time, money and reputation – of events such as a ransomware attack or data breach is equal to the costs of the technology-related workforce burden.
Q: Talk about the importance of prioritizing the tools doctors value most.
a. Simply put, investing in a tool that a doctor doesn’t like to use is not a good investment. So how do organizations end up with such tools? One IT leader said, “When we do things with technology, we often don’t involve multidisciplinary teams. Then you get this reaction of, ‘We built it, so why don’t they come?'” “
We see this a lot with our health system customers when the IT organization makes a decision based on criteria that aren’t aligned with what clinicians want and need – and they end up flipping another solution on and off.
according to Latest KLAS report Given a clinician’s perspective on clinical decision support, “Tools that lack robust content, search capability, and electronic medical record integration are not effective for point-of-care workflows and can frustrate users, especially those who are already experiencing burnout.”
Q: What are some best practices for introducing change, including seeking clinical perspectives and incorporating them into the decision-making process?
a. Partner with clinicians from the beginning of the process for any workflow tool And listening to their needs and pain points is crucial. Healthcare organizations that do this well consistently follow some of the best practices:
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Seek out and integrate clinical leadership and physician perspectives while developing the overall digital strategy and defining decision-making processes.
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Consult clinical staff and administrative teams in designing, piloting and/or testing applications, processes and workflows. Yes, every step of the way as small details can often undo a carefully laid out strategy.
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Continue to engage a multidisciplinary team throughout the lifecycle when scaling incremental technology solutions across the organization.
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Email: bsiwicki@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.