Improve your productivity by LEADing your workflow

The AMA STEPS Forward? playbook—“Reducing Regulatory Burden: Avoid Overinterpreting the Rules”—aims to clarify often misunderstood and overinterpreted regulations and offers strategies to reduce administrative burdens that lead to additional work, excessive documentation, an increased cognitive burden and dysfunction within the health care team.

The AMA playbook notes that 78% of obstructive and wasteful rules that patients and staff identified were fully within control of administrators, health care executives and managers to change, according to a 2016 study from the Leadership Alliance.

The AI market map is cluttered with vendors promising to improve workflow productivity.

By presenting a critical assessment of AI’s transformative potential, this review equips researchers with a deeper understanding of AI’s current and future impact on healthcare. It encourages an interdisciplinary dialogue between researchers, clinicians, and technologists to navigate the complexities of AI implementation, fostering the development of AI-driven solutions that prioritize ethical standards, equity, and a patient-centered approach.

Evidence shows that for some specialties, like screening for diabetic retinopathy, AI increases clinical productivity. For other specialties, like complicated surgical procedures done in "smart ORs", or using robots prolongs the operative time and reduces surgical procedure productivity with minimal benefits.

Ochsner started working to improve ED flow in the last quarter of 2024, and the system has been put to the test during the high flu season. However, it has cut diversion hours by 90% across the system and also reduced ED patient referrals from its on-call triage system. Dr. Hart credited the success to taking a holistic view of patient flow.

"For years, I think we were looking at ED throughput too narrowly — focusing on individual steps rather than the whole system," he said. "Now that we're approaching it holistically, I believe we're on the path to real, sustainable change. The ED is the front door to the entire hospital, and bottlenecks anywhere in the system affect patient flow."

The system's three-prong approach includes preventing unnecessary ED visits, finding new ways to move patients efficiently through care once they enter the ED and discharging them quickly either to their home or to hospital care.

Nearly 90% of health system executives said digital and AI transformation is a high or top priority for their organization, yet 75% reported their organizations are not yet able to deliver on that priority. This is because they have not sufficiently planned or allocated the necessary resources, says a report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

Here are some of the top digital areas where organizations have invested money.

Increasing procedural productivity does not necessarily correlate with operational efficiencies or communication, and compliance documentation like documenting a visit in the EMR, returning email communications from patients, producing patient educational materials or post visit clinical summaries, meeting billing and coding regulations, responding to prior authorization denials and other administrivia required to maintain a medical license, staff privileges and credentials approval to do specific procedures or use specific technologies. The resulting burnout, while slightly lower than it has been in recent years, remains high.

Instead, improve your organizational and personal productivity by LEADing your workflow:

LIST YOUR WORKFLOW AND TIME MANAGEMENT PRIORITIES

ELIMINATE TASKS THAT ARE NOT URGENT AND IMPORTANT

AUTOMATE AS MANY PRIORITIZED TASKS AS POSSIBLE

DELEGATE THOSE AUTOMATED TASKS TO SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT NEED AN MD/DO TO DO THEM

Delegating work can help free up managers’ time and energy while empowering their employees to take on meaningful tasks. Yet, previous research has shown that delegating decision-making can cause employees to feel overly burdened. In a new paper, researchers examine the negative impact that handing over choice responsibility can have on delegator-delegate relationships. They offer research-backed solutions for delegating decisions more fairly in order to offset some of delegation’s negative interpersonal consequences

Another tool, as described by Michael Watkins, is to use systems thinking to identify limiting factors or "binding constraints". Identify the scarcest critical resources that constrain your organization to grow. In the case of sick care, human resources has become a binding constraint.

Here are some other ways to make doctors better, faster, and smarter.

While they might help make them more productive, these tactics probably won't make them cheaper. But perhaps they can help them be a bit happier.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack