Quiet, the Smart People are Going to Tell Us How to Fix Physician Burnout

When people pretend they are smart they come up with things like this:

  • A survey of 934 physicians with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) found they received an average of 243 electronic “in-basket” messages per week regarding their patients. Of those, nearly half were automatically generated by PAMF’s EHR.
  • According to the survey results, published Monday in Health Affairs, 36% of responding doctors reported symptoms of burnout, while 29% said they intended to reduce their clinical workload in the next year. Additionally, 42% of surveyed physicians received EHR-generated messages at higher-than-average volumes. Those doctors had a 40% greater likelihood of reporting symptoms of burnout and a 38% higher probability they wanted to cut their clinical work hours.
  • The study’s authors suggested shutting off automatic messaging to doctors when they’re off work and altering EHR-related workflows so some tasks are delegated to other employees. They also urged EHR designers to rethink messaging algorithms, as “physicians might not be the most appropriate recipients of some system-generated messages.”

You see, it’s that easy. Just shut off the automatic messages and alter the EHR-related workflows. Simple, right? And don’f forget to adjust the algorithms.

This was satire, right? Did they forget that the system of metrics and MIPS and every other bullshit hurdle to get paid was forced on doctors. You may want to change that first. Just sayin’.