Consider if the software necessary for your job became so burdensome that it led to fatigue, burnout, and additional hours of work. How would this affect your work quality?
Clinicians are grappling with cumbersome and intricate third-party solutions integrated into electronic health record (EHR) systems, leading to adverse effects on patient care and heightened burnout risk, as per a study by Insiteflow.
Significance:
The Wakefield Research study, commissioned by Insiteflow, surveyed 250 clinicians, revealing numerous challenges they face while incorporating third-party solutions into their EHRs.
An overwhelming 94% of participants expressed that the absence of user-friendly insights adversely impacts patient care, resulting in delayed treatment initiation (53%), prolonged hospital stays (52%), and incorrect treatment plans (47%).
Despite recognizing the value of external insights, roughly three-quarters of clinicians reported difficulties accessing and utilizing them within their EHRs, with 82% highlighting challenges in harnessing external opportunities for improvement.
Many clinicians resort to disjointed methods, like accessing separate sites outside the EHR, to obtain external insights, leading to missed opportunities for enhanced patient care, as acknowledged by 98% of respondents.
Consequences and Challenges:
Approximately 77% of clinicians cited the complexity of accessing and applying patient-specific insights from various external sources as contributing to feelings of fatigue and burnout.
Difficulties in effectively capitalizing on insights stem from time-consuming access (43%), lack of user-friendliness (39%), overall difficulty (27%), and forgetfulness (31%).
Typical workflows involve navigating external websites, EHR drop-down menus, and receiving alerts or alarms within the EHR, contributing to a suboptimal experience for healthcare professionals.
Insight and Recommendations:
Anthony Gerardi, CEO of Insiteflow, emphasized the detrimental impact of cumbersome workflows on clinician fatigue, burnout, and patient outcomes, urging for improved accessibility of insights within EHRs.
Efforts are underway in the industry to enhance EHR experiences and mitigate burnout, such as Oracle Cerner’s implementation of generative AI with Clinical Digital Assistant.
Gerardi underscored the importance of alleviating workflow burdens to maintain clinician well-being and enhance patient care quality, emphasizing the need for user-friendly tools in EHRs.
The Larger Context:
Previous studies have highlighted the correlation between suboptimal EHR user experience, alert fatigue, and compromised hospital safety, emphasizing the importance of efficient EHR utilization.
Healthcare organizations seek vendor support to enhance EHR experiences, as indicated by the KLAS Arch Collaborative.
Oracle Cerner’s integration of generative AI aims to streamline workflows and alleviate mundane tasks contributing to clinician burnout.
Quotation:
Gerardi posed a thought-provoking question, emphasizing the impact of cumbersome tools on work quality and underscoring the necessity for improved EHR experiences to mitigate burnout: “Imagine if the tools on your computer that you need to do your job were so cumbersome, they caused you to be fatigued, burn out and to have to work extra hours to get your job done. How would this impact the quality of your work?”
