Technology

You love by the sword. You die by the sword. You have a love-hate relationship with the electronic health record. How can physicians begin to tame the beast that has been fed and let loose in the medical industry so they can get back to practicing medicine.

Taming the EHR and its Effect on Burnout

Rick Rosemeier, interviewed by Becker's Health IT and CIO Report, recommends these four efforts to reduce the burden of EHR on frontline physicians.

1) Let physicians personalize the EHR interface. This can be done from the department level all the way down to individual physicians with order sets, customized templates, and landing pages.

2) Train physicians on the EHR, then train them again. Doctors who receive at least 6 hours of training before a go-live date and ongoing training seem to have fewer issues.

3) Align EHR workflows with clinical workflows. Health IT and Operations can no longer be allowed to be separate disciplines. These two departments must work together to create the best experience for physicians to work efficiently.

4) Seek out doctors' needs, wants and concerns. By training, physicians have been taught to put up with less than optimal circumstances and many suffer silently under the weight of poor EHR implementation. Get your IT team out on the floor and listen to what is not work.

Simplify EHR and Desktop Logins for Doctors

 Yale Medicine implemented tools to make it much easier for a physician to login into their workstation and HIPAA compliant Electronic Health Record. It allows physicians to logon with their password traditionally at the beginning of the day, but then as the system automatically locks them out after a period of inactivity, to wave their employee badge to log them back in using RFID technology. Most hospitals already use this for timecards, it should be easy enough to add next to every physician laptop.

Simpler Logins, Voice Recognition Ease Click Fatigue
Save 1 Million Clicks a Day based on Dr. Paul DeChant's recommendations

Public Support and Commitment to the Principles of the Charter for Physician Well Being 

​Most graphics courtesy of Freepik / Pixabay

Original Content Copyright 2015-2023* Ada County Medical Society
PhysicianVitality.org and the Capital Coalition for Physician Well-Being is sponsored by Ada County Medical Society, Boise Idaho.

The National Charter on Physician Well-Being was developed by the Collaborative for Healing And Renewal in Medicine, under a grant from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.

Local services offered here, specifically the Physician Vitality Program (counseling services) are directed at ACMS Members only. All other information is published in the hopes it will be useful to other physicians and clinicians seeking help and inspiration.

If you have research, examples, or ideas that illustrate approaches to implementing the Charter on Physician Well-Being, you may submit or recommend content to: director@adamedicalsociety.org. However, this webpage is focused on non-commercial solutions and does not list commercial products or recovery, diagnosis, or treatment services unless are narrowly focused on physician well-being and locally based in Idaho.