Clinician burnout’s link to administrative burden and technology emerges as a pivotal concern. Julie Frey of Wolters Kluwer Health underscores the need for technology to support clinicians, highlighting IT’s growing strategic role in addressing burnout. The evolving role of IT leadership in optimizing clinician workflows gains prominence, aligning with the shifting landscape of healthcare priorities. Strategic alignment, prioritizing valued tools, and involving clinicians throughout change implementation are essential for mitigating burnout and enhancing patient care.
The issue of clinician burnout looms large in the healthcare landscape, posing a significant threat to quality and accessibility. Forward-thinking healthcare executives are actively seeking strategies and technological innovations to counteract this crisis and enhance the daily lives of their caregivers.
Julie Frey, the Director of Product Strategy at Wolters Kluwer Health, a renowned clinical decision support tool developer, recently spoke with Healthcare IT News regarding the critical role technology can play in alleviating clinician burnout.
Q. You assert that clinician burnout primarily stems from administrative burdens and is undeniably linked to technology. Could you elaborate?
A. A recent AMA report pinpointed administrative burdens as a chief cause of clinician burnout. The convergence of high patient volumes, regulatory mandates, and payer demands bears significant responsibility.
However, technology’s role in this predicament cannot be ignored. The array of tools clinicians must utilize—electronic health records (EHRs), clinical decision support systems, telehealth platforms, productivity tools, and emerging digital health applications—contributes to an unrelenting cycle of adaptation. The continuous introduction of new tools, workflow alterations, and additional clicks imposes cumulative stress on clinicians, leading to cognitive overload and ultimately burnout.
While individual changes may appear minor, their collective impact, coupled with the influx of novel technologies, creates an overwhelming burden. This burnout has ripple effects on productivity, morale, and clinician retention. Therefore, addressing clinician burnout necessitates enabling clinicians to spend more time doing what they love: caring for patients.
Considering the role of technology in this predicament, why is IT underutilized in supporting clinicians? IT leaders acknowledge that technology is pivotal in tackling contemporary workforce challenges, promoting top-of-license practices, and enhancing care team efficiency. Leveraging technology to address these concerns could yield lasting benefits for both clinicians and patients.
Q. You contend that now is the opportune time for IT leaders to reverse clinician burnout. Could you elaborate on this role?
A. Health systems are displaying a renewed commitment to elevating their IT strategies, particularly focusing on digital transformation. The pandemic expedited this trend.
Based on interactions with clients, technology has emerged as a central organizational and strategic pillar, on par with clinical care and patient education. Technology leaders, whether CIOs, chief digital officers, or CMIOs wield increasing strategic influence and budget allocation.
Previously, efforts to modernize and streamline clinician workflows may have taken a back seat to other IT priorities such as enhancing virtual care, bolstering information security, fortifying data analytics, and responding to cyber threats. Given the array of pressing issues, streamlining clinician workflows understandably slipped down the priority list.
Nevertheless, effective IT workflows form the foundation for optimizing all technology-driven objectives. The inefficiencies contributing to clinician burnout reverberate throughout the organization.
Fortunately, the link between current technology usage and clinician burnout has become apparent. CIOs have shifted their focus toward improving clinician workflows, especially administrative burdens.
In the 2022 Academy Priorities Survey, CIOs ranked “developing technology-enabled solutions to alleviate care team administrative burden” among their top five priorities. In 2023, it will be a top-three priority alongside enhancing information security practices and fortifying cyber threat incident response and recovery planning.
This underscores the considerable organizational cost—in terms of time, finances, and reputation—of events like ransomware attacks or data breaches, which parallels the costs of technology-induced workforce stress.
Q. Could you emphasize the significance of prioritizing tools that clinicians value?
A. In essence, investing in tools that clinicians find cumbersome to use proves counterproductive. How did this discrepancy arise? An IT leader mentioned, “Our technology initiatives often lack input from multidisciplinary teams, leading to the sentiment, ‘We built it, so why won’t they use it?'”
This scenario frequently unfolds among health system clients when IT decisions diverge from clinicians’ preferences and needs. The outcome often involves adopting and abandoning solutions.
According to a recent KLAS report gauging clinician perspectives on clinical decision support, “Tools lacking robust content, search capabilities, and EMR integration prove inefficient for point-of-care workflows, frustrating users, especially those already grappling with burnout.”
Q. Could you outline some best practices for implementing change, including incorporating clinical insights into decision-making?
A. Collaborating with clinicians from the outset of any workflow tool development and heeding their needs and challenges, is paramount. Healthcare organizations excelling in this approach adhere to several best practices:
– Integrating clinical leadership and clinician perspectives into overall digital strategy formulation and decision-making processes.
– Involving clinical staff and administrative teams in the design, pilot testing, and implementation of applications, processes, and workflows, engaging them at every juncture to mitigate potential pitfalls.
– Maintaining multidisciplinary involvement throughout the life cycle when scaling new technological solutions across the organization.
