What You Should Know About AI Tech and EHR Burnout

I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of leadership at #HIMSS2024. These are CEOs, CIOs, and CEOs of healthcare organizations, hospitals, mental health facilities, and outpatient surgery centers in the US and Canada.??

Why do leaders come to conferences like these? They have to make decisions on technology, such as AI and automation, and they know that they need to be informed, but they're overwhelmed with the information.???

If you are in a position of leadership and you need to make financial decisions that impact your business units and your teams, I'll help you get up to speed on what we covered one-on-one with senior leadership.?

Overwhelm by Technology Options?

There are too many tools, strategies, and platforms to learn, and you don’t have the time to go granular with all of them or become an expert. If you did, you’d never be able to do your job.??

So, when you have an open slot in your calendar, you look for opportunities to meet people who can help you understand where you should direct your attention, namely training and technology budgets for your organization.

You’ve got a lot of responsibilities on your plate, and you need help distilling the plethora of information out there to consolidate it with a trusted source so you know where to invest not only your time and energy but also the budgets that you manage.?

You need to make good decisions and have a heavy responsibility to make the right choices with somewhat limited knowledge of the impact of adopting new technology—although you feel the pressure to do it as quickly as possible.??

You have to run as fast as you can, but don’t want to trip over your feet.???

Enterprise Healthcare Transformation?

Your knowledge is diverse but may be all over the place, coming from years forged in the fire of experience. But does this mean that AI makes sense for your business units??

We got mixed levels of experience when we talked with folks directly about the enterprise document processing and automation capabilities of platforms like OpenBots .??

Some have been exposed to the technology, and others have heard about its benefits through the grapevine or may have even been mandated by their board to do something about it to avoid being left behind.???

In all these cases, there is an undercurrent of pressure to make choices like throwing an arrow in a dimly lit room, hoping to hit your target.?

EHR Experience and Interoperability?

Part of the opening conversation is being candid about our budget and our team's expertise and understanding what kind of practical ROI we can get for a healthcare organization. Talks always intersect with the EHR the healthcare organization or facility uses or aspires to use.?

It’s no surprise to hear heavy-hitter names like Epic, AthenaHealth, eClinicalWorks, Meditech, etc. Some leaders are proud that they’ve trained their staff on these platforms or are in the process of moving to a new EHR.??

Change is a constant in life, and it's no different in healthcare.?

What is common is the love/hate relationship that physicians, patient coordinators, and administrative staff alike feel about EHRs—because the limitations are glaring.?

EHRs are complex and are supposed to save a lot of time and help consolidate data, but they really don't work that way because these systems don't talk to each other that well—you know, the whole interoperability problem. :(?

Where Transformation Starts?

If you don’t have the correct information in your local EHR, you can tap into a health exchange if you are part of one. However, only about 30% of physicians use HIEs, which makes them vastly underutilized.??

Part of this is because they are another system with another set of rules, and processes to learn. Doctors already maxed out, spending over 4.5 hours interacting with EHRs. Which. IS. REALLY. Tedious.

Their “EHR playtime” gets in the way of their ability to be direct and one-on-one with their patients. They're spending their time on manual data entry, writing notes, reviewing reports, and having their team verify information like referrals, prescriptions, lab reports, etc.?

According to NIH (a previous client of mine), “The average time spent by physicians on EHR exceeded one-third of their workday (4.5 hrs daily). The finding is a possible indicator that the EHR has room for usability, functionality improvement, and workflow optimization.”?

Is there a way to get around this problem without slapping another tool for physical and staff alike to learn???

Yep! Read on...?

EHR Burnout Is Pervasive?

When I express my appreciation for the frustration of spending hours with EHRs to leadership, they understand it's a big problem. Weren’t EHRs supposed to make our lives easier and solve problems, not create more??

Here’s a key point—you’re not looking for another technology to learn! There is already so much training that goes into teaching your staff how to use an EHR.?

Your team is already overwhelmed by using it correctly, inputting data, and staying up to speed with the latest advances. Each EHR contains intelligent tools, using new technology to help streamline fax data and incorporate AI, but who has the time to learn it??

It all sounds cutting-edge and exciting from an innovation perspective. From the standpoint of your physicians, it’s an, oh man, something new/more to learn!??

Another thing I have to add to my plate. Another technology. Another tool. Another layer of complexity that will get in the way of treating my patient.??

You get the idea.?

You Don’t Need Another Tool to Learn?

EHR burnout is such a huge problem that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) created a detailed strategy with recommendations for reducing this pervasive issue.??

Part of it is “reducing the administrative burden of EHR-related tasks.”??

Think of coordinators who bring patient data into their system to get that patient to the front lines to see a physician.???

In simple examples like these, the opportunity for transformation is the intersection of the volumes of manual paperwork like Efaxes and the verification of that data into multiple systems.?

Contact me for a strategy session if you and your staff feel the burden (and burnout) from tasks like these.??

I’ll share the actual costs, ROI, and where to start to streamline your data to bring much-needed relief to your employees.???

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[If you need more clarification about this session or are not sure if it's for you, DM your questions to me here on LinkedIn.]

#healthcaretransformation #healthcareinnovation #healthcaredata #automation #ai