AI note-writing software will provide massive short-term relief to stressed-out physicians, effectively disconnecting the quality of notes from personal data entry skills. Unfortunately, after a brief respite from the stress of documentation, things could worsen.
The first EMR software was implemented in the early 2000s. The increased stress of digital documentation caused physician burnout rates to jump by 20 percent. Every study conducted since that time has identified documentation burden as …
In my work with thousands of overstressed physicians and over 175 health care organizations, I have repeatedly learned one lesson: resilience training alone is not sufficient to rein in the epidemic of physician burnout.
If you believe, as I do, that physicians are the canary in the coal mine of medicine, then it is clear the epidemic of physician burnout is an indictment of the conditions of the mine, not the …
Our physician coaching team and I have extensive experience working with thousands of doctors over the past 13 years who have approached us feeling burned out, exhausted, and uncertain about their future.
We have developed a structured method to assist them in recovering from burnout by focusing on new strategies aimed at constructing their ideal practice.
For years, we’ve recognized that these strategies can be categorized into seven distinct groups.
How do you spot a “psychopath” inside a complex bureaucracy?
It is a consistent feature of bureaucracy. Psychopath doctors and senior leaders almost never get walked out of the building despite years of complaints and truly outrageous behavior. When they finally are fired or brought to justice, just a small amount of digging reveals National-Enquirer-headline-style shenanigans.
What will your workday look and feel like when it has eliminated your need to document, answer messages, or deal with your inbox? Isn’t that what we all want: freedom from electronic medical records and all the other documentation tasks? Yes? For decades now, the physician’s lament has been, “I just want to see patients.” A recent article, revealing the Mayo Clinic’s AI task automation strategy, hints at a future …
If your conscious mind is asking, “Is this what burnout feels like?” your little voice already has the answer.
One of the things physicians ask me on our coaching discovery call is whether or not I think they are burned out.
They want a second opinion from a fellow doctor. That’s a natural instinct, and yet, my opinion is completely irrelevant in the arc of their life as a physician.
What will the U.S. health care industry look and feel like in 2023?
If you want to call the U.S. health care a “system” today, what will that “system” look like in the year 2030, and how will it handle the health care needs of an older, sicker population?
With nearly everyone calling for system change and reform, including “burn it to the ground” and more, let’s look at the demographics of …
Let me show you four simple steps, requiring just 15 seconds, that will turn a patient thank you into a two-way healing encounter of the highest order.
It is incredibly easy for a thank you from a patient to slip by during a busy day in the office. We can get so caught up in the blizzard of clinical tasks we fail to hear what the patient is trying to communicate. We don’t …
Here in 2014, where employed physicians are projected to comprise a full 1/2 of the work force by 2021, autonomy has become a quaint, old fashioned memory.
You are probably in the middle of your organizational chart with a boss above you. This person often has a frustrating ability to dictate the specifics of your practice, unless you figure out a way to have some influence in their decisions.
Medscape published an article titled, 4 Top Complaints of Employed Doctors, and it was a very interesting read. Turns out the things employed physicians complain about are basically that they are employees.
Let me lay out these employed physicians gripes for you with a little detail so you will see what I mean. I will finish this article with a solid way to address all of them. These …
Do you find yourself spending too much time on things that have nothing to do with seeing patients, and then getting home later than you would like?
Do you notice that for every 15 minutes you spend with a patient you spend way more than that messing around in the EMR and being distracted by things like prescription refills, test results and a hundred other forms of two bit clerical work …
Forget Angry Birds and other mobile apps that do a great job of helping you waste time. And set aside for now the apps that help you find information and practice clinical medicine more efficiently. It was only a matter of time before mobile apps would be developed that can actually help you prevent physician burnout.
Here are my two favorite free mobile apps to help you lower stress and create …
“Disruptive physician” is one of the most misused terms in healthcare these days. In many organizations, those two words have become the c-suite’s trump card to quash any physician resistance to new administrative programs. These programs are often have purely financial motives or are a brazen attempt to dump additional tasks on the physicians with no regard for their workload or stress levels.
The doctor’s legitimate concerns about quality of care …
In these early days of pay for performance (P4P) reimbursement, as the size of your paycheck begins to reflect your patient satisfaction scores, let’s have a frank discussion about three important topics all healthcare providers and organizations must understand going forward.
How your performance will be measured
How to get the highest patient satisfaction scores and be a happier doctor at the same time
Back in the day, coal miners always carried a canary with them in a small cage whenever they would go down in the mine. The canary is a very talkative bird, always singing and tweeting in a constant background noise. Canaries have one more characteristic important to a miner.
When there is bad air in the mine, the canary’s sensitive lungs will cause …
In this article I will show you a push button shortcut you can use to quickly create more work-life balance, no matter how busy your practice and your life feels at the moment.
When it comes to creating balance between your medical career and your life, there is a simple rule in play. The strongest structure wins. When we are talking about …
I believe the projected shortage of physicians caused by the Affordable Care Act will drive primary care into two opposite tracks. Each is a distinct and logical response to the patient overload and each points out gaping holes in our medical education that must be addressed.
The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that there will be a shortage of 63,000 doctors by 2015 and 130,600 by 2025 in the wake …
Is the placebo effect something that demands the presence of a living human – or can we program it into a cell phone app? What happens to healthcare if we can?
I must admit I have always been fascinated by the concept of placebos. You give a research subject with a documented medical condition a sugar pill – and they get better. They heal themselves despite the fact they have not …
The most common complaint about physicians on the Internet is, “They didn’t listen to me.”
You were sitting in the office and the doctor was physically present in the room, but they weren’t all there. Even worse is when the doctor doesn’t try to understand what you are going through. Sometimes it can seem like they didn’t even care.
Most of us take for granted that we are the center of the …
