In a recent study by the Mayo Clinic, they assessed how physicians view electronic health records (EHR) software systems usability and evaluate how poor usability correlates with the feelings of burnout for medical health professionals. The conclusion stated, “[There is] a strong dose-response relationship between EHR usability and risk for burnout was observed. Given the association between EHR usability and physician burnout, improving EHR usability may be an important approach to help reduce health care professional burnout.”
Health care professionals are finding that they are experiencing burnout due to technology stressors and ever-increasing workloads.
Don Baham, a Nashville Healthcare IT service provider recommends moving to a managed information technology (IT) service for EHRs that may help with relieving some of those feelings of burnout and reduce workloads.
Design Flaws
Most EHRs are designed with the idea that the software is meeting federal mandates and regulatory requirements for the health care field while still meeting the needs of the clinic to bill patients and keeping records personal. However, with meeting these federal and regulatory needs the software is failing in usability, creating more work in documenting patient needs, and decreasing the amount of time that a doctor can spend speaking with each patient and providing care.
Managed IT Service can Help
Whether the health service is in a large hospital, rural medical center or an individual doctor office having an EHR that is managed by an IT service could be beneficial. Some of the benefits are:
- Compliance
Having a managed IT service that provides HIPAA-compliant healthcare solutions can decrease the stressors. When a separate service manages the compliance aspect of an EHR they take all the necessary steps to ensure that the software is up to date. Also, a manage IT solution to an EHR can be customized to include user prompts that will assist in compliance.
- Threat Prevention
Cyberattacks are a very real threat to healthcare practices as they often hold sensitive data of all the patients that they treat. When an IT service is outsourced to a managed solution, they will have the knowledge and capacity to mitigate risks and detect threats quickly.
- Manage and Monitor
Healthcare does not take time off and there is no such thing as business hours, having a managed IT solution that understands this and can provide monitoring 24/7 decreases problems while allowing healthcare professionals to provide the best patient service possible. A managed IT solution can stop network infrastructure troubles before they start.
- Consistent Upgrades and Development
A managed IT solution can be scalable, keep all systems and software updated, as well as decrease time and resources devoted to the EHR. When clinicians can work with the most up to date software and EHR solutions they can decrease their overall workload and stress.
- Disaster Recovery
In the health care system part of the job is to prepare for the unexpected and disasters. Should the worst happen with a clinic’s information infrastructure, a managed IT solution can provide answers and resolutions for the recovery of files and other important information. Keeping the ripples of a disaster to a minimum.
