Healthcare tech partnerships aim to address provider workflow efficiency needs without overloading tools and adding to professional burnout.
Complex workflows contribute to healthcare burnout
Healthcare professional burnout is a well-documented and studied concern in the healthcare industry, affecting up to 52% of healthcare workers according to some estimates.
While many factors – from unmanageable workloads, to feeling underappreciated and facing difficult patient expectations – are cited as contributing causes to healthcare professional burnout, many workers note that dissatisfaction with healthcare technology and systems also create undue stress. According to research from the AMA, physicians are spending an average 36.2 minutes on the electronic health record (EHR) per patient visit, even though most primary care visits are scheduled for 30-minute time slots. “EHR time burden, and the burnout associated with this burden, represent a serious threat” to the healthcare workforce, the study asserts.
The opportunity to streamline digital processes can help combat clinician dissatisfaction in addition to improving overall workflow efficiency.
UpToDate: Focusing on partnerships for better alignment
In the face of burnout and margin pressure, building efficiency is top-of-mind for most hospitals and health systems. But when accounting for entrenched workflows, IT leaders have to consider how much they are helping providers and other healthcare professionals as adding more and disparate tools to their existing system can disrupt workflow and further professionals’ frustration and burnout.
This has long been a concern for Wolters Kluwer Health and its UpToDate® clinical decision support solution. As UpToDate is a market-leading resource that many clinicians already consult at the point of care, its leadership wanted to find new and innovative ways to make its globally trusted clinical guidance available to healthcare professionals without contributing additional clicks, screens, logins, or burden to their daily workflow.
At the HLTH 2024 conference, Wolters Kluwer will announce ways UpToDate is offering better alignment and better insights by evolving to bring more value, both by adding its own enhancements and by partnering with organizations that are driving innovations and can layer new functionality into existing workflows to help reduce burnout.
