Tuesday, April 5, 2022

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.


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Saturday, April 2, 2022

Engaging patients in digital check-in

Today’s patients are busier than ever, and convenience is of prime importance to them. To this end, utilizing digital check-in technology is one way to engage patients in your practice, helping to inspire loyalty and increase retainment. It can provide many benefits to a practice, and there are various ways to promote engagement through digital check in.

First, what is digital patient intake or registration?


Patient intake is the process of collecting patient demographics, clinical data, insurance, consent forms, payments, and other pertinent information from patients. This process is critical to the success of a medical practice, as it provides the organization with all the information needed to submit health care claims and receive reimbursement for services rendered. Traditionally, this process has been conducted manually with paper forms and transcription by office staff. Digital patient intake, however, allows this process to be completed more efficiently and conveniently by providing patients with the opportunity to complete the intake process digitally prior to their appointment, with the information being directly integrated into the medical practice’s software applications.

Second, how can practices promote engagement through digital check-in?



Digital check-in satisfies patients’ desire for convenience and efficiency, helping them feel more engaged and invested with their provider. Additionally, digital check-in helps take the pressure off that many patients feel in traditional check-in scenarios. For example, it can be difficult to remember specifics regarding your medical history when you are handed a form to fill out while sitting in the waiting room. While this is frustrating for the patient, it can also potentially impact health outcomes because providers do not get an accurate picture of the patient’s health history. By allowing patients to take more time to engage using digital check-in, medical practices are giving providers the benefit of a more complete health picture as they pursue the patient’s care, leading to improved health outcomes and satisfied patients.

Third, what are the benefits of digital check-in?


There are several benefits of incorporating digital check-in to your practice. First, digital check-in supports healthy accounts receivable cycles. When you receive accurate patient information before a patient’s appointment, you can verify coverage, help patients understand their financial responsibility, and submit clean claims that are unlikely to be returned unpaid. Second, using digital check-in makes it easier to access patient information and eliminates the delay associated with manual data entry. This means that providers can find what they need when they need it, and office staff can use the time they would need to put into data entry for more pressing tasks. Next, digital check-in reduces the risk of exposure to illness for both patients and staff, aiding in infection control. Sharing clip boards and pens, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, increased face time between patients and staff, all these facets of the traditional check-in process increase the opportunity for the spread of illness. With digital check-in, these points of contact are eliminated, keeping your patients and staff safe. Finally, digital check-in increases patient satisfaction. Remember, patients want efficiency and convenience, and digital check-in certainly delivers in these areas. Satisfied patients are loyal patients, meaning that digital check-in aids in patient retention which, of course, provides enhanced financial stability for your practice.

There are solutions that provide virtual waiting room technology, including pre-arrival focused patient scheduling and intake and payment options. For example, Yosi Health integrates with Henry Schein MicroMD practice management & electronic medical record software. If you are considering implementing digital check-in for your practice, it’s wise to first consider what will integrate with your existing technology and provide you with a seamless workflow. Also, consider how the digital intake forms are presented to patients, and if they will need to register for any type of account, or if they can simply fill out their form through a secure link. Remember, you want this solution to be convenient for your patients, so make sure you’re choosing a vendor whose product is easy to use.

In today’s convenience-seeking, consumer-driven healthcare industry, the best thing a practice can do is increase efficiency for their patients. Digital check-in is one effective way to achieve this goal. From engaging patients in their health care and aiding in infection control, to improving your practice’s financial health, digital check-in will make a positive impact on your practice.


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Friday, April 1, 2022

Physicians want work-life balance

I really enjoy my job. I appreciate the people I get to work with and feel like the work we do really matters. That’s why I’m willing to put in extra hours and effort to ensure the job is done well. I believe physicians do the same thing. They work hard, they’re dedicated to their patients and their jobs and most love what they do. That makes putting in the extra work easy.

However, even at my busiest I don’t think I could or would average working 80+ hour weeks. I’m also not responsible for making literal life and death decisions on a daily basis. The expectations we as a society put on physicians is that they will always be there when we need them, regardless of when or where. Physicians embrace that responsibility and they are there when we need them most. This often comes at the cost of their personal lives and was a regular part of medicine for an extremely long time.

Dr. Andrew Wilner, who graduated from medical school in 1981, had this to say:

“When I entered the world of medicine, there was no such thing as physician burnout or work/life balance. It was a privilege to become a physician. The chosen few admitted to the hallowed halls of medicine expected to devote 100% of their lives to this sacred calling… as a product of that generation, the drive to excel as a physician significantly postponed my family plans, almost permanently.”

Later in his career Dr. Wilner found it was possible to have a life separate from medicine while still maintaining a successful and positive career as a neurologist while still spending time with his family.



Young physicians today have a different outlook and a recent survey by CompHealth’s parent company, CHG Healthcare, found the number one factor new physicians are looking for in a job is work-life balance. This was followed closely by work schedule and location. What makes this more interesting is that CompHealth asked a similar question in a survey CompHealth back in 2018. Work-life balance was number one on the list as well. However, in 2018, 63% of physicians listed it as their number one factor, this year that number jumped up to 85%.

Achieving work-life balance isn’t just good for physicians it is also good for their patients and the facilities they work. Even before the pandemic provider burnout was seen as an issue that caused adverse patient reactions. Add in COVID-19 with physician burnout at an all-time high and negative patient impact is even higher.

“For as many as 50% of physicians, burnout symptoms of cynicism, exhaustion, and reduced effectiveness overshadow their personal and professional lives,” says Dr. Wilner. “Like the coronavirus, burnout has reached global epidemic levels. Responses by academic institutions, government, and private industry to systemically address the burnout epidemic are woefully inadequate.”

Burnout is often a direct result of a life out of balance. Having that time outside of work to rejuvenate and focus on family or other interests keeps physicians fresh for when they return to work. In our role of placing locum tenens physicians in temporary jobs around the country I have seen physicians that were ready to quit medicine find new life in their careers. They found that taking more control of their schedules and freeing up some time for themselves made a huge difference in their personal and professional lives. The physicians that work with us still work long, demanding hours but the difference is they are choosing when and where to work and if they need a break, they can control their schedule.

Physicians are integral parts of our community and it’s important we recognize they deserve a healthy work-life balance as much as anyone else. New physicians are making job decisions based on this need and if we want the profession to grow, we need to do whatever we can to fight burnout and promote balance in physicians’ lives.


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