There’s a business case to be made for addressing physician burnout caused by EHR systems. At the most basic level, physicians with symptoms of burnout are twice as likely to leave an organization as those without such symptoms.
The cost of replacing a physician (recruitment, “onboarding,” training, lost revenue, etc.) has been estimated at $500,000 to $1 million. In addition to finances, physician burnout can lead to medical error and low patient-satisfaction scores. Although physician resiliency is an important aspect of burnout risk management, the organization has the power to fix the systems issues that contribute to burnout.
Listed below are articles, webinars and other resources that tie physician burnout to EHR burdens and propose solutions and/or recount the stories of how healthcare organizations optimized their EHR to reduce burnout. Share this list of resources with administrators and leadership to help prompt the conversation about optimizing the EHR.
How EHR Optimization Can Help Reduce Physician Burnout
This article highlights how Mississippi’s Memorial Hospital of Gulfport addressed physician burnout through a nine-step EHR optimization program. The program is designed to minimize inefficiencies in physician EHR use, with particular emphasis on when and how physicians document patient encounters.
At University Hospitals in Cleveland, MD and IT Leaders Are Making Strides to Reduce Provider Burnout
This article discusses how executive leaders at Cleveland-based University Hospitals accelerated a partnership with the health system’s EHR vendor, Allscripts, to address EHR usability and workflow issues, with the aim of making the EHR system more user-friendly, seamless and interoperable.
How to Reduce Burnout with a Physician Driven EHR Design
This blog post discusses the use of software developed to avoid physician burnout in the emergency department at Vermont’s Northwestern Medical Center.
Our Epic Journey: Changing a Complex System to Work for Your Clinical Team
This National Academy of Medicine presentation discusses Erlanger Health System’s EHR transition to an optimized EPIC system.
Optimizing the EHR to Prevent Burnout and Obtain Better Outcomes
This webinar discusses Brigham Health’s method of optimizing the EHR to support enhanced clinical decision-making, while alleviating physician burnout and driving better clinical, operational and financial outcomes.
8 Ways to Reduce Physician Frustration with the EHR
This article summarizes eight changes that can be implemented to help reduce physician frustration with the EHR, drawn from the EHR optimization project at Gould Medical Group in Modesto, California.
