The Executive Suite: How health care’s rapid digital transformation is alleviating administrative and care team burnout

There’s no question that burnout has been an issue for all industries as we’ve navigated the last two years, but that’s perhaps even more true for those in the health care industry. While handling patients with the best possible care, providers are also tasked with monstrous workloads, regulatory labyrinths, and data entry so time-consuming it often runs into after-hours and weekends. In fact, over 16% of a physician’s time is spent on those tedious-yet-important administrative duties.

These consuming and overwhelming tasks alone can lead to health care workers becoming both physically and mentally exhausted. With health care workers leaving the field in substantial numbers, it’s more important than ever for health organizations to provide staff with an environment optimized for productivity and reduce the burden of labor-intensive administrative tasks.

The exodus of health care workers has been especially evident amid the Great Resignation, during which we’ve seen an estimated half a million workers leave the health care industry— and that’s just since February 2020.

Burnout solutions found in digital transformation

Digital transformation is emerging as a valuable resource that the health care industry is adopting and implementing to drive positive results. In addition to easing worker fatigue, digital health solutions can significantly improve the patient experience.

Perhaps if we took a different approach to how all medical staff interfaced with health care data, they could spend more time on their patients and themselves, leading to a healthier work environment. Below are just a few benefits health care providers experience when transitioning to the right digital health care platform.

Simple online scheduling abilities: A customized online scheduling solution lets patients quickly schedule appointments anytime, anywhere. Effective two-way integration seamlessly adapts to a clinic’s rules and established guidelines so practices can fill openings promptly and accurately.

Intuitive appointment reminders and notifications: Automatic notifications deliver appointment reminders according to the patient’s preference of email, text, or phone call. Confirming appointments reduce no-shows and increase patients' chances to keep their referral appointments.

Streamlined patient intake: Digital patient intake automatically delivers electronic forms for patients to complete before their visit. Or, once arrived, an electronic tablet can be available for convenient use. Scanning forms, clipboards, and filing stacks of paper can be a thing of the past. Once collected, the patient’s data is secured and discreetly delivered directly to EHR and PM systems.

Easily accessible health information: Digital portals can be a central point of access patients rely on for needed information. The features of a portal include viewing medical records, lab results, upcoming appointments, and relevant forms. Synchronizing patients with their entire care team provides convenience, improves workflow, and is user-friendly for all consumers. Digital portals result in fewer calls to a clinic, reduced administrative tasks, and streamlined logistics.

Managing patient populations: Reviewing medical history, trends, and cycles in a targeted community generates increased touches with your patients while reducing the burden on a practices’ staff. Automated patient engagement drives population health management efforts and nurtures positive outcomes. Customized outreach campaigns encourage patients to take their medications, follow through with referrals, or see if they have questions about discharge instructions. With proper analytics and automation tools, doctors and care managers can define populations, target their most complex patients, and identify rising-risk patients.

By streamlining the patient experience through digital health transformation, providers increase efficiencies, improve workflows and boost health outcomes.

Empowering the patient

While the digital transformation dramatically enhances provider efficiency, the end goal is to empower patients to have an active role in their own care. By providing a holistic, transparent view of their health, patients are enabled by their doctors to become engaged and informed. An active patient is more likely to catch warning signs early, take medication as prescribed, and schedule follow-up visits.

Engagement benefits the provider as well. Cutting down the back and forth between a patient and their doctor’s office, reducing appointment cancellations, and completing forms, paperwork, and questionnaires prior to visits help increase efficiencies and improve workflows.

Supporting health care providers

Digital health engagement removes barriers by streamlining complex, layered processes into a focused, patient-centered online experience.

Equally significant, digital engagement helps maximize resources and integrates workflows to cut down the never-ending stream of multi-tiered administrative tasks that continually strain healthcare workers.