Reversing the Trend: 6 Smart Strategies to Reduce Physician Burnout

Physician Burnout is Reaching a Breaking Point

Peter Oppenheim had been a family physician for 25 years. Being a medical doctor had been his dream since childhood. However, he struggled with balancing the needs of his patients and the industry’s time-consuming documentation demands, which limited the time he could spend providing real medical assistance. As a result—and as he wrote in an article for FPM Journal—“I was a poster child for physician burnout.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Oppenheim’s situation is not unique. Forty-two percent of physicians reported burnout in 2021 alone. What is less known is that most of those cases—58%–are from one main cause: documentation. Too much bureaucracy. Too many late nights faced with the arduous paperwork challenge. Physicians spend between 34 and 55 percent of their workday compiling clinical documentation and reviewing EMRs. It’s a crippling constraint on their time.

The Root Cause: Clinical Documentation Overload

Fortunately, there is a way to avoid clinician burnout. As we published in a recent white paper, we recommend organizations explore these six clinician adoption best practices:

Six Proven Strategies to Fight Burnout

1. Offer flexible documentation tools.

Many clinicians document their clinical visits through transcription, the use of a medical scribe, or both. For example, a surgeon may transcribe in the clinic but use a medical scribe for post-procedure documentation. To meet all these needs, providers should use an app or service that offers every option. The more flexible the documentation tools, the greater the clinician’s satisfaction.

2. Give clinicians telehealth support.

Nearly two-thirds of patients today prefer telehealth visits over in-person visits. Clinicians should seek a solution provider who can assist in writing the notes for these online/phone interactions.

3. Automate chart abstraction and preparation.

Medical offices must remove obstacles that make it difficult or time-consuming to collect important information from a medical record and transcribe it into every necessary location within the organization’s EHR. Simplifying the process through automation will reduce clinician anxiety.

4. Make it easier to access legacy data.

A pain point for almost all clinicians is an inability to obtain data trapped in legacy EHRs and other systems. Finding a solution that simplifies data management and archiving can go a long way to minimizing burnout.

5. Proactively assist clinicians who need help the most.

Some CDI solution providers offer personalized analytics to identify clinicians needing more assistance with tasks, such as preparing workflow charts, finding legacy data, and writing clinical notes. The sooner these problems are identified, the faster meaningful assistance can be provided.

6. Partner with an expert. Look for a team with deep subject-matter expertise in your EHR tool of choice.

Do your research. You’ll want a documentation partner that can support all areas of your documentation, including assisting your contact center, enhancing EHR workflows, and implementing new EHR feature releases. Consider where you might need an application, project management, optimization, training, or implementation expertise. Consider your KPIs and seek solutions and service providers who can help you drive clinical and revenue integrity forward.

DeliverHealth: A Partner in Preventing Burnout

Simply the Complexities of Healthcare with DeliverHealth

Studies indicate that the U.S. healthcare system has more than $16.5 billion in inefficiencies at any given moment. Health system leaders have millions of opportunities to prevent physician burnout through automation, standardization, and coding and billing processes.

DeliverHealth has a proven track record of success in helping health systems do exactly that, from simplifying workflows to aligning processes. We offer managed services, on-demand services, consulting services, and industry-leading solutions like our eSOne platform for transcription and medical scribing—all uniquely designed to help improve CDI and stop physician burnout.

A Better Path Forward

Our team recently provided one-on-one personalization workflow sessions to physicians, which successfully increased EHR adoption to 94% and prevented one physician from leaving the organization due to burnout.

To learn about reducing physician burnout, read the full white paper here.